With approximately 100 million shots fired at mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) annually, it is incumbent on managers to determine whether changes in ammunition will substantially alter harvest metrics or hunter satisfaction. We compared mourning dove harvest metrics for 1 lead (Pb 7 1 /2, 32 g) and 2 steel (Fe 7 and Fe 6, 28 g) 12-gauge ammunition types using a double-blind field test in central Texas, USA. There were no differences in the number of attempts, or number of shots fired among ammunition types. Hunters were unable to distinguish the ammunition type being used in the field, and we detected no relationship between ammunition type and level of hunter satisfaction. Field analyses detected no difference in doves bagged per shot, wounded per shot, bagged per hit, or wounded per hit among the 3 ammunition types. Necropsy analyses detected no difference in the proportion of birds with through-body strikes, mean penetration depth of through-body strikes, or mean embedded pellet depth among ammunition types. Ammunition and choke combinations that produced higher pattern densities yielded more hits per shot and produced more total strikes per bird, resulting in a higher percentage of birds with embedded pellets, more embedded pellets per bird, and a higher proportion of birds with broken legs. All 3 ammunition types retained sufficient lethality to harvest mourning doves under typical hunting conditions. Our results demonstrate that when the ammunition type used provides sufficient lethality for pellets to penetrate vital organs, pattern density becomes the primary factor influencing ammunition performance. Ó

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Band recoveries provide requisite data for evaluating the spatial distribution of harvest relative to the distribution of breeding stocks for a wide variety of migratory species. We used direct and indirect band‐recovery data to evaluate the distribution and derivation of harvest of white‐winged doves (Zenaida asiatica) banded before hunting season in 3 distinct strata in Texas, USA, during 2007–2010. We banded 60,742 white‐winged doves during 2007–2010, and based on 2,458 harvest recoveries, the majority (>95%) of white‐winged dove harvest occurred during the first 2 months of the hunting season (Sep–Oct). Juvenile white‐winged doves represented a greater percentage of the direct recoveries than adults across all strata (north = 80%, central = 69%, south = 82%) and the majority of direct band recoveries (north = 75%, central = 90%, south = 78%) occurred within the original banding strata. Age‐specific weighting factors and harvest derivation indicated that both juvenile and adult harvest were highest within the strata of original banding. Harvest distribution data corrected for band‐reporting rates indicated high fidelity of white‐winged doves to specific geographic strata, with little interplay between strata. Our results suggest that population vital‐rate estimates for survival and harvest for use in future Adaptive Harvest Management should focus on stock‐specific levels. © 2012 The Wildlife Society.

Dove population management necessitates estimates of vital rates for use in mechanistic models used to evaluate and predict population responses to environmental variation and/or alternative harvest scenarios. Estimating recruitment (number of juveniles per adult) is complicated because a compendium of factors drives production in doves. White-winged doves Zenaida asiatica exhibit a fairly unique breeding strategy wherein they commonly return to the same breeding area and reproduce in large breeding aggregations (i.e., colonies). We used an open-population capture–recapture model to estimate annual immigration and in situ recruitment of white-winged doves breeding in an urban colony during 2009 and 2010. We captured 5,101 unique white-winged doves in 2009 (2,894 after hatch year, 2,207 hatch year) and 3,502 unique white-winged doves in 2010 (3,106 after hatch year, 486 hatch year). Immigration of adults into the breeding colony peaked during late April and early May, with in situ recruitment occurring during a 6-wk period from 19 June to 30 July. Our results predicted that >90% of all hatch-year individuals had entered the local population by 1 August. The Jolly–Seber model used allows white-winged dove recruitment values to be estimated directly (rather than as a conglomerate of multiple parameters), separates immigration from in situ recruitment within a season, and can be useful for monitoring recruitment and evaluating alternative recruitment indices for future use in harvest management-planning actions.

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