meet no later than late June. Status statistics must he sum¬ 
marized for consideration by this Committee. The annual Status 
Report (or a preliminary version thereof) serves this purpose. 
The Status Report is also distributed to all cooperators and 
is available to interested organizations and individuals. 
For several years prior to i 960 , the Federal framework of 
mourning dove hunting regulations was established on the basis 
of eastern and western groups of States. Recent analysis of 
banding data indicates that there are three largely independ¬ 
ent units of the mourning dove population (Kiel, 1959)* Since 
i 960 , the Federal framework of hunting regulations has been based 
on these three management units. The criteria for a management 
unit are that the bulk of the doves harvested within a unit is 
produced within that same unit and that a significant number of 
doves produced within a unit is not harvested outside that unit. 
The Eastern, Central, and Western Management Units, outlined in 
figure 1 , best meet these criteria. In order to establish more 
firmly the management unit boundaries, additional analysis of 
banding data is currently in progress. 
PROCEDURE 
The call-count method 
Call-count routes were established after field investiga¬ 
tions in 1950-51 demonstrated the feasibility of the technique. 
These investigations were reported by Foote, Peters, McGowan, 
Kerley, Duvall, Robbins, and Wagner (1952). Each route is 20 
miles long and has 20 listening stations located 1 mile apart. 
Call-counts begin one-half hour before sunrise and continue 
for 2 hours. A record is kept during the survey period of 
all doves seen or heard calling along the survey route. Infor¬ 
mation on the call-count method and procedures for randomly 
selecting call-count routes was presented by Foote, Peters, 
and Finkner (1958)* 
The only currently available dove population index, national 
and international in scope, is the call-count survey. The sur¬ 
vey has limitations and possible biases which require further 
study. One important limitation is the fact that the survey 
provides an index to the breeding population and does not take 
- 2 - 
