“The few questions you hear at a license vendor are not used for the final harvest estimates, but they are very important to the way the program works,” said Luke Naylor, waterfowl program coordinator for the AGFC. “Those questions are used to categorize all migratory bird hunters by the number of migratory birds they harvest so proper surveys can be distributed.”
The real surveys used in HIP are hunter diaries, submitted from a handful of hunters, and wing surveys, where certain hunters are asked to mail in a wing of each bird they harvest during a season for verification of species, age and sex.
“A few thousand hunters are chosen each year for those two surveys, and they decide who gets those surveys based on categories developed from responses to the registration questions,” Naylor said.
Unfortunately, because the HIP registration is free, many hunters who do not hunt migratory birds have still taken the time to fill out a registration on a “just in case” basis. Additionally, license clerks at some outside vendors may not have much experience processing the registration, leading to incomplete or inaccurate data.
“That data is very important to harvest estimates used in harvest management, including determining regulations such as season structures and limits,” Naylor said. “If we’re not working with good data, we’re not able to manage the populations for the best benefit of the birds or the hunters.”
Naylor says the move to manage HIP registrations within AGFC offices and AGFC-owned resources is a good first step to ensuring any known hiccups are removed from the HIP system.
“As a duck hunter, I understand we’re going to have a few people that might see it as inconvenient to make that one extra phone call or visit to agfc.com to get that registration separately if they purchase their license at a sporting goods store,” Naylor said. “But as responsible stewards of our natural resources, we need to make sure the data we are using to manage our ducks and geese are as accurate as possible.”
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