INTRODUCTION 
by 
Leonard E. Foote, Wildlife Management Institute 
| and 
Harold S. Peters, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
This report is a summary of the results of a series of closely 
related, intensive investigations designed to develop a reliable index 
to the Mourning Dove population. 
Most of the research leading to the development of the "call index't. 
has been done concurrently at different latitudes in the eastern United 
States as part of the Cooperative Dove Investigation which was orgmized 
Late in 1948. In this investigation, the State Game and Fish Commissions, 
the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, several universities, the Wildlife 
Management Institute, other private organizations and many individuals 
have pooled resources and manpower in an effort to determine essential. 
population phenomena with the objective of improved hunting regulations 
for the Mourning Dove. 
Coordination of activities under the Cooperative Dove Investigation 
has been primarily the responsibility of George C. Moore, Assistant 
Supervisor, Branch of Federal Aid, Fish and Wildlife Service; Harold S. 
Peters, Research Biologist, Branch of Wildlife Research, Fish and Wildlife 
Service; and Leonard E. Foote, Field Representative, Wildlife Management 
Institute. Credit for the original idea of adapting an auditory index to 
doves is more or less equally shared by Moore; Peters; Foote, Edward 
Wellein, Flyway Biologist, Section of Waterfowl Investigations, Fish and 
Wildlife Service; and Daniel J. Nelson, Federal Aid Project Leader, Georgia 
State Game and Fish Commission. Wellein and Foote started the original 
discussions of the possibilities of the method which has been founded upon 
the basic researches of H. Flliott McClure a decade ago (McClure, H. E., 
1939, Cooing Activity and Censusing of the Mourning Dove, Jour. Wildlife 
Met. 3: 323-328). Peters, Nelson and Foote ran a three-car, half-mile 
interval call route in March, 1950, which was followed by Foote's Georgia 
evening counts in May, 1950. Allen Duvall and Chandler Robbins, Branch of 
Wildlife Research, Fish and Wildlife Service, experimented with call counts 
at measured stops along routes in Maryland, Pennsylvmia, and New York in 
May and June, 1950, and Peters followed similar procedures in Ohio in June, 
July, and August of that year. The chief results of these earlier studies 
were the determination of the practicability of certain procedures in the 
call count method, particularly the distance between stops, the length of 
these stops, and the time of day and duration of the count. Coordinated 
research was proposed during late 1950 and begun in 1951 after statistical 
analysis of the 1950 data. 
