dux_99
03-24-2006, 11:23 AM
I hope this pans out. Here is the article that was in the Peoria Journal Star today:
Goose hunters have reason to rejoice at the latest news out of Springfield.
After years of fretting over quotas and early season closures, we're on the brink of a brave new world of goose-hunting regulations.
Pending final approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - expected later this summer - goose quotas will be a thing of the past in Illinois starting this fall.
In place of complicated calculations and hunter-compliance rates we'll have a straightforward season. How refreshing.
"Goose population dynamics have changed and that's why we can do this," state waterfowl biologist Ray Marshalla said. "So far every group we've run this past has been happy."
No doubt. Instead of reporting every bird you shoot, instead of tying up conservation police officers all winter, instead of complaining about guys at Braidwood and instead of seeing the season end just as things gets good, honker hunters will enjoy a set season for the first time since quotas emerged in the 1970s.
Back then, resident giant Canada geese accounted for 5 percent of the annual harvest in Illinois. Most birds shot were migrants from one of three breeding flocks in Canada.
Because breeding conditions for migrants changed so much each year, every effort was made to protect them when reproduction was poor.
Nowadays resident giant geese make up 62 percent of the Illinois harvest and represent 82 percent of the total for the Mississippi Flyway. Since non-migrating local birds do not face the same reproductive instability, biologists feel they can be less restrictive.
"And we've got safeguards in place if we find this is detrimental (to migrating geese)," Marshalla said.
That's why a committee of the Mississippi Flyway Council voted 5-1 to eliminate quotas for the flyway in 2007. The group voted 6-0 to allow Illinois to do the same one year earlier.
If the USFW agrees, hunters in the north and central zones face one of two seasons: 79 days with a daily bag of two geese or 90 days with 37 days of a one-goose bag. South zone hunters face either a 57-day season with two birds or 70 days with 43 days limited to one bird.
That's one of many topics Marshalla has discussed with waterfowl groups in recent weeks. He is scheduled to meet with Tri-County Ducks and Geese Forever next week.
Later this spring, most likely the week of May 22, the state will hold public meetings to discuss duck and goose dates.
"We hope to set duck and goose seasons for the next five years" based on a 60-day duck season, Marshalla said.
What a welcome change that would be from the bickering and doubt waterfowlers have come to expect each summer.
Goose hunters have reason to rejoice at the latest news out of Springfield.
After years of fretting over quotas and early season closures, we're on the brink of a brave new world of goose-hunting regulations.
Pending final approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - expected later this summer - goose quotas will be a thing of the past in Illinois starting this fall.
In place of complicated calculations and hunter-compliance rates we'll have a straightforward season. How refreshing.
"Goose population dynamics have changed and that's why we can do this," state waterfowl biologist Ray Marshalla said. "So far every group we've run this past has been happy."
No doubt. Instead of reporting every bird you shoot, instead of tying up conservation police officers all winter, instead of complaining about guys at Braidwood and instead of seeing the season end just as things gets good, honker hunters will enjoy a set season for the first time since quotas emerged in the 1970s.
Back then, resident giant Canada geese accounted for 5 percent of the annual harvest in Illinois. Most birds shot were migrants from one of three breeding flocks in Canada.
Because breeding conditions for migrants changed so much each year, every effort was made to protect them when reproduction was poor.
Nowadays resident giant geese make up 62 percent of the Illinois harvest and represent 82 percent of the total for the Mississippi Flyway. Since non-migrating local birds do not face the same reproductive instability, biologists feel they can be less restrictive.
"And we've got safeguards in place if we find this is detrimental (to migrating geese)," Marshalla said.
That's why a committee of the Mississippi Flyway Council voted 5-1 to eliminate quotas for the flyway in 2007. The group voted 6-0 to allow Illinois to do the same one year earlier.
If the USFW agrees, hunters in the north and central zones face one of two seasons: 79 days with a daily bag of two geese or 90 days with 37 days of a one-goose bag. South zone hunters face either a 57-day season with two birds or 70 days with 43 days limited to one bird.
That's one of many topics Marshalla has discussed with waterfowl groups in recent weeks. He is scheduled to meet with Tri-County Ducks and Geese Forever next week.
Later this spring, most likely the week of May 22, the state will hold public meetings to discuss duck and goose dates.
"We hope to set duck and goose seasons for the next five years" based on a 60-day duck season, Marshalla said.
What a welcome change that would be from the bickering and doubt waterfowlers have come to expect each summer.