ABSTRACT 
Hunters in 20 States of the Central and Mississippi Flyways partic¬ 
ipated in an experimental 9-day teal hunting season in September 1965. 
During this special season, hunters were required to obtain a free permit 
and could shoot four teal a day (blue-winged teal, green-winged teal, 
and cinnamon teal, singly or in the aggregate) and have eight in posses¬ 
sion. Data were obtained by means of a mail questionnaire survey, a 
teal wing collection survey, and a hunter performance (spy-blind) survey. 
A total of 201,972 hunting permits was issued, 49,359 in the Central 
Flyway and 152,613 in the Mississippi Flyway. Of the applicants who 
obtained permits, 55 percent hunted. Hunters bagged 448,060 ducks, 
including 404,710 blue-winged teal and 39,610 green-winged teal. The 
harvest of illegal ducks, not recognized as such, was 3,600 (from the 
wing collection), but the actual illegal kill, based on the hunter 
performance survey, was estimated to be 33,736. The species most prev¬ 
alent in the illegal kill were wood ducks (13,000) and mallards (7,088). 
Percentages of cripples and unretrieved ducks revealed by the hunter 
performance survey were added to these totals, which together with a 
projected kill for the regular season, gave a total hunting loss by 
species. These totals were converted to percentages of the fall popula¬ 
tions and compared with proportions of the populations killed in 
previous years. These data suggest that the experimental teal season 
in 1965 provided 111,085 hunters 257,180 days of recreation without 
adversely affecting the continental population of any waterfowl species. 
Additional data are needed, perhaps from three special teal seasons, 
in order to establish whether the bagged ducks add to or reduce 
nonhunting mortality for the teal species involved. 
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