LINCOLN — Nebraska's hunters are on target to open the waterfowl season a week earlier this year.
Game and Parks commissioners voted Friday to consider starting the teal and early Canada goose seasons Sept. 5, instead of Sept. 12 as originally proposed. A vote to establish the seasons is set for Aug. 28.
Duck hunters appealed to commissioners for the earlier seasons. Larry Dvorak of Waterloo said an earlier start to the teal season would give hunters a better chance to catch the blue-winged teal migration, which typically hits from mid-August to mid-September. A major push of teal passed through Nebraska on Aug. 22 last year, he said.
Dvorak, a member of the Nebraska Low Plains Waterfowlers Association and the Duck Inn Hunting Club, said he hunts along the Platte River and in a cornfield near Gretna virtually daily during the duck season.
He said an earlier start also would allow school-age hunters an extra day in the field because they'll be out of classes Sept. 7 for the Labor Day holiday.
“One way to increase the commitment of youth to hunting is to increase the probability of success in the field,'' he said.
Teal are an important duck species to Nebraska hunters. Blue- and green-winged teal represented about 16 percent of the total ducks killed in recent years. An average of 10,500 teal hunters are in the field for Nebraska's September season.
Mark Vrtiska, the Game and Parks Commission waterfowl manager, said the fall season should be good for hunters, based on reports from northern breeding grounds.
“We're living in the golden age of waterfowl hunting in Nebraska and the United States in terms of duck and goose populations,'' he said.
Commissioners also heard support for a proposed regulatory change that would shrink a no-hunt buffer zone south of Interstate 80 along the central Platte from five miles to three — but a caution against making the buffer zone any smaller than that.
Five representatives of tourism and wildlife conservation organizations from central Nebraska said allowing spring goose hunters to venture within less than three miles of the cranes' river roosting sites could disrupt the birds during their vital Nebraska layover. Unlike other states, there is no hunting season for sandhill cranes in Nebraska.
Other proposed seasons for ducks and geese remain unchanged from last year.
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444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
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