The slow descent into cooler temperatures as fall approaches means it's also the beginning of dove season for many North Texas hunters.
Dove-hunting season began Sunday for the North and Central Zones of Texas, which include the Panhandle all the way down to San Antonio.
Dove season is the unofficial start of the fall hunting seasons. While there have long been ethical objections to killing animals for sport, hunting species like doves can help keep wildlife populations in check, said Drew Spencer, a Texas game warden based in Lubbock.
That can prevent the negative effects of overpopulation, including higher predatory rates, less food and water and higher disease rates.
“The double negative is that humans are not getting to use those for human consumption,” Spencer said. “They just basically go to waste.”
What kinds of doves are in Texas?
While seven native dove species call Texas home, the three that are legal to hunt as game are mourning, white-winged and white-tipped doves — the latter are found in deep southern Texas.
There are two other dove species state officials consider invasive and would frankly like to see less of, Spencer said: the Eurasian collared dove and the feral pigeon or rock dove.
Both are subtemperate Asian and European species — not native to North America. Feral pigeons are one of the most common birds on the planet, found in almost every urban area, said Owen Fitzsimmons, a biologist and webless migratory game bird program leader for TPWD.
Eurasian collared doves quickly colonized Europe in a couple hundred years, Fitzsimmons said. According to the Texas Invasive Species Institute, they appeared in the Caribbean as a captive population that was released into the wild and later colonized southern Florida in the 1980s.
Eurasian collared doves haven't demonstrated any explicit dangers to native North American doves, but they may discourage other species from using bird feeders and even aggressively defend those food sources.
There are no limits on when or how much people can hunt these invasive species, but state wildlife officials recommend leaving the birds’ feathers on them for identification purposes.
Doves weren’t popular to hunt as sources of food 150 years ago due to their small size, Fitzsimmons said. As the nation urbanized and Americans moved away from hunting animals for food, people instead began hunting birds like doves for sport.
Dove hunting is especially popular in Texas. The state accounts for 85% of total white-winged doves and 30% of total mourning doves harvested in the United States each year — more than any other state, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
“We've been hunting doves in this state for over 120-plus years,” Fitzsimmons said. “And for most people, it's really just kind of the kickoff to the hunting season, because dove season is the first season to open up each fall.”
What to know before hunting
This year, hunters may find significantly higher dove populations.
There are an estimated 34.3 million mourning doves in Texas, according to spring population surveys done by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. That’s the third-highest estimated population in survey history.
White-winged dove populations have reached a new record high with an estimated 12.8 million this year.
“We've had a fairly wet spring and summer across most of the state, which bodes well for dove numbers,” Fitzsimmons said. “I think this is going to be one of the better years we've had in many years.”
Regardless of what kind of doves hunters are looking for, the state requires hunters to have hunting licenses. Hunters also need a migratory game bird endorsement and a Harvest Information Program or HIP certification to hunt doves.
Those born on or after Sept. 1, 1971, need to complete a hunter education class. Anyone who hunts on public land must also have a public hunting permit and follow the rules set by state biologists and landowners.
It’s also important for hunters to take into account the angle at which they’re shooting birds in order to avoid trespassing, Spencer said, especially because licensed hunters have an obligation to retrieve any wounded or downed doves.
“It's unlawful to step foot onto property that you don't have permission, but it's also illegal to have your shot or any projectile from a firearm cross property lines that you don't have permission,” he said. “That, too, would be trespass.”
Other TPWD rules include:
- The bag limit for doves is 15 birds daily, no more than two white-tipped doves, and the possession limit is three bags daily.
- Hunters may only use shotguns to shoot doves. That gun must have a plug, limiting the number of shotgun shells it can hold to no more than three.
- Hunters may shoot birds from a half hour before sunrise until sunset.
The dove season ends Nov. 10 and resumes Dec. 20 through Jan. 7, 2025, for the North Zone of Texas.
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