The committee's refusal to modify the dove

The committee's refusal to modify the dove season frameworks comes just two years after Texas successfully pushed to get federal approval of the current rules.

For decades, federal frameworks allowed opening of the South Zone dove season no earlier than Sept. 20, nearly three weeks after the Sept. 1 opening date allowed in the rest of the state.

The late opening was designed to delay hunting in the region until almost all dove nestlings had fledged. South Texas can see late nesting efforts that have young doves still in the nest into early September.

At the direction of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the 1990s implemented a policy of opening the South Zone dove season on the first Friday following Sept. 20 if Sept. 20 fell on a weekday other than Friday. The move was aimed at providing an extended "opening weekend" in the South Zone, which holds some of the state's best dove hunting, drawing many of the state's 300,000 dove hunters and pumping millions of dollars into the region's economy.

But that meant some opening days could fall as late as Sept. 24. Such late openings drew fewer hunters. Also, the later the opening date, the higher the odds that heavy rains from a tropical storm or hurricane or an early season cool front could push birds out of the area, negatively impacting hunting.

In 2009, at Texas' urging, federal regulators approved rules allowing opening of dove season in Texas South Zone on the Friday nearest Sept. 20 but no earlier than Sept. 17.

But proponents of the change didn't take into consideration that in some years, that opening date would fall as late as Sept. 23 — as it does this year.

TPWD officials this year pushed a proposal to change frameworks to allow the South Zone to open on the third Friday of September, no matter what date that Friday fell. This year, it would have allowed the season to open Sept. 16.

Biological impact of the change would be minor, if any, proponents argued.

But federal migratory bird managers declined to recommend the change to the regulations committee.

"Yes, I'm upset - to say the least," Dave Morrison, TPWD director of small-game programs, said of the decision. "It was a minor change that had good support from the Central Flyway Council."