The following schedule is from the 72nd Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies which was held October 21-24, 2018 in Mobile, Alabama.
AUTHORS: Michael L. Schummer, Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mississippi State University; Allison M. Smith, Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Richard M. Kaminski, Kevin M. Hunt, Elizabeth St. James – Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mississippi State University; Houston Havens, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks
ABSTRACT: Waterfowl hunters participate in hunting for appreciative-, affiliative-, and achievement-oriented reasons. To investigate the influence of achievement-oriented factors on hunt quality, waterfowl hunters at four Mississippi Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) responded to a survey following hunting, 2009-2015. We used these questions to calculate a hunt quality score for each participant and tested whether variation in hunt quality was best explained by total number of ducks harvested, number of mallards harvested, total bag weight, or quality of ducks as table fare. We detected that hunt quality increased with total number of ducks and mallards harvested. Hunt quality scores varied positively with an increasing number of ducks harvested up to six total ducks (i.e., the daily allowable bag) and number of mallards up to three ducks (i.e., 1 less than the daily allowable bag during study). We detected that harvesting ducks, especially mallards, is important to hunters at Mississippi WMAs, and believe this metric should be considered in developing waterfowl management plans in Mississippi and elsewhere in the southeastern United States.
