DFG News Archive

Canvasback Daily Bag Limit Increased

The daily bag limit for Canvasback ducks has increased from one per day to two per day effective Oct. 25, 2007. Following action by the Fish and Game Commission on Oct. 16, the Office of Administrative Law’s approval has put the increase into effect.

“It was a very unusual situation for the federal government to liberalize a hunting regulation that we did not anticipate or address in our California Environmental Quality Act documentation,” said Melanie Weaver, a biologist in the Department of Fish and Game’s (DFG) Waterfowl Investigations Project. “It has obviously caused some confusion and some lost hunting opportunities in the northeastern zone, but for the bulk of the state’s hunters, this action by the OAL is timely.”

The federal government sets regulation ‘frameworks’ in early August after analyzing current waterfowl population data and considering input from the various flyway councils and the public. The frameworks specify the outside dates, total number of hunting days, daily bag limits, shooting hours, and methods of take authorized for migratory game birds and are developed to ensure that there are sustainable populations of migratory game birds. These frameworks allow a daily bag limit of two canvasbacks per day during the 2007-2008 hunting season, an increase from recent years when the bag limit was one per day.

However, the Environmental Document prepared by DFG and certified by the Fish and Game Commission did not anticipate an increase in the canvasback daily bag limit in the federal frameworks and did not analyze this change to the hunting regulations. That environmental document was circulated for public review for 45 days ending July 31, 2007. Additional environmental review was undertaken with a comment period that ended Sept. 20, 2007.

The continental canvasback population in 2007 is at a record high level of 865,000. The federal government established a harvest strategy for canvasbacks in 2004 which limits harvest regulations to either a closed season (bag limit = 0) or a 1-bird daily bag limit. Based on this Strategy, DFG’s original recommendation and environmental review of changes in duck hunting regulations for 2007 did not provide for a 2-bird daily bag limit for canvasbacks. Increasing the daily bag limit for canvasbacks is expected to provide additional hunting opportunity without adversely affecting the canvasback population.

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