Discussion of population index trends 
Breeding mourning dove population indexes for all manage¬ 
ment units increased this year from their 1963 levels. Des¬ 
pite a small decrease in the nonhunting States of the Eastern 
Management Unit, the entire Unit shoved an increase and is 
presently above its 10 -year average. This increase follows 
3 years of decline from the peak i960 index. 
The indexes of both the hunting and nonhunting States of 
the Central Management Unit increased slightly over the 1963 
levels. The entire Central Unit shoved a 3-6 percent increase, 
which is also the first increase since i960. 
The largest increase in 1964 was in the Western Manage¬ 
ment Unit. 
The 1964 breeding dove population index for the entire 
United States shoved an increase of 7-9 percent over 1963* 
The current index is 2.7 percent above the 10 -year average 
and 10.2 percent below the peak i960 index. 
To date, Ontario is the only Canadian Province which 
has provided comparable dove population status data. The 
average number of doves heard calling on comparable routes 
decreased slightly ( 3*9 percent) from the 1963 level in 
Ontario (table 2 ). 
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