Louisiana wildlife agents wrote 141 citations during the first weekend of dove season, the state’s fish and wildlife agency said this week, and the enforcement note landed the same weekend hunters across the country walked into fields for their own openers.
Agents ran patrols across all seven wildlife regions Saturday and Sunday. The largest single category was hunting over a baited area, followed by shotgun-plug violations, licensing issues, and taking more than a daily limit. Fines ran from $400 to $950 per violation, with additional restitution possible for over-limit birds.
The pace was heavier than the same weekend a year earlier, when agents issued 32 dove-related citations statewide. Agency officers linked the higher count to a combination of more hunters afield, more patrol coverage, and clearer follow-through on cases the agency has flagged during its pre-season outreach.
Dove hunting is regulated federally by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, codified at 16 U.S.C. §§ 703–712, and state agents cite under that framework alongside state game statutes. The baiting rule bars hunting where grain, salt, or other feed has been placed or scattered to attract birds, and it applies whether or not the hunter placed the material. Standing crops that have been manipulated for a normal agricultural purpose are treated differently under the same regulation.
The mourning dove is the most-hunted migratory bird in the country. Population estimates put the U.S. population at about 337 million birds, and hunters take more than 20 million in a typical year. Louisiana’s north and south zones both opened over the same weekend the citations were written.
Agents said the pattern in dove cases usually points back to fields that were fertilized or mowed in ways that trigger the federal baiting rule. Hunters new to a property are the ones most often caught, because the field owner or a neighboring landowner did the work weeks earlier. The agency’s guidance to hunters is straightforward: inspect the field on foot before setting up, and don’t hunt a field where you can see grain or feed on the ground you can’t explain.
