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Why the PFBC’s actions were right

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Remembering a marvel of a man

<p>HONESDALE &#8212; Molly Giles waited in the blistering heat and patiently watched several cage traps lined up along a gravel lane.</p><p>With six bands to fill before reaching her quota of 25, Giles hoped the bird seed placed in the traps would entice a few doves to go inside. Within a few minutes, Giles, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, peered through her binoculars and saw a dove inside a trap, calmly pecking at the seed.</p><p>After gently removing the dove from the trap, Giles went through a routine that yields valuable information on dove populations and is also used to set hunting seasons for the following year.</p><p>&#8220;This is part of the National Dove Strategic Harvest Plan which looks at harvest rates for adults and juveniles, survival rates and recruitment,&#8221; Giles said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a nationwide program that the Game Commission became a part of in 2003.&#8221;</p><p>Pennsylvania is one of 18 states in the Eastern Management Unit participating in an annual dove banding program. Roughly 40,000 doves are banded in the entire unit.</p><p>Every year since 2003 PGC biologists have spent part of their summers banding and aging doves across the state. Giles, who works out of the northeast region office, was charged with banding 25 doves each in Wildlife Management Units 3C and 3D this year. In WMU 3D Giles trapped doves in Pike County and quickly filled the banding quota in three nights.</p><p>&#8220;Dawn and dusk are the best times to do this,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Doves get to the bait faster than ducks do, and we target areas that have suitable habitat such as gravel near a water source with plenty of open space.&#8221;</p><p>While doves are quickly attracted to baited traps, the process and banding and aging them is equally as fast. It takes Giles less than a minute to place a small band imprinted with a phone number around the dove&#8217;s leg, and then she examines the primary covert feathers on the wing to age the bird. If the primary covert feathers have light-colored tips, it means the bird is a juvenile, Giles said. She also counts the primary feathers on the wing to determine which one is moulting, an indication that the young bird has been recruited into the population.</p><p>After that, Giles re-baits the traps and settles in to wait for the next birds to arrive.</p><p>Since 2003, Giles said, more than 195,000 doves have been banded in the eastern unit states, including roughly 15,500 in Pennsylvania. That&#8217;s a lot of bands, but very few are reported by hunters or anyone else who might comes across a banded dove.</p><p>About 4 to 5 percent of the bands are returned,&#8221; Giles said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a very low recovery rate for doves.&#8221;</p><p>There are several possible reasons for the low return rate. The number of dove hunters in the state has dropped from 93,532 in 1990 to 25,490 in 2010. With fewer people hunting doves there&#8217;s less chance of a band being reported, Giles said, adding that 50 percent of hunters report the banded birds they harvest.</p><p>&#8220;Some hunters might not even know we band doves or they might not notice the bands because they&#8217;re so small,&#8221; Giles said. &#8220;That could be a factor as well.&#8221;</p><p>Still, the banding work has yielded some interesting results.</p><p>Giles said a majority of the bands that are reported by hunters are from birds that were born and banded in Pennsylvania. She said band returns from elsewhere indicate a strong migratory link from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas, with a few birds turning up in Texas and Kansas.</p><p>&#8220;Last year I had one dove turn up at Middle Creek that was banded in New Jersey. When it was caught in a trap and aged, we found it was 6 years old. The typical age for a dove is a year-and-a-half,&#8221; Giles said.</p><p>Banding has also determined that juvenile doves turn up the most in hunter harvests and most of the banded birds are males because females are busy sitting on nests during the summer.</p><p>&#8220;The larger dove populations in the state are in the southeast but we still have decent numbers here,&#8221; Giles said. &#8220;The trapping program allows us to keep a close eye on that.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Pennsylvania Game Commission&#8217;s participation in the nationwide dove banding program provides valuable age and harvest information that&#8217;s used to set seasons for the following year. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_dove21.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Pennsylvania Game Commission&#8217;s participation in the nationwide dove banding program provides valuable age and harvest information that&#8217;s used to set seasons for the following year. </caption0><photoCredit0>Tom Venesky| Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Dove11.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Biologist Molly Giles releases a banded dove while trapping in Honesdale earlier this month. Giles hoped to trap and band 50 doves this summer. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Dove11.jpg</photo1><caption1>Biologist Molly Giles releases a banded dove while trapping in Honesdale earlier this month. Giles hoped to trap and band 50 doves this summer. </caption1><photoCredit1>Tom Venesky| Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Game Commission&#8217;s annual dove program yields interesting results</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p><p>To see video of biologist Molly Giles banding and aging a dove, visit the online version of this story on timesleader.com.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><videoMeta><p><table class="mceItemTable" style="border:none;width:98%;"><tbody><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoID:</td><td id="videoid" style="width:50em;font-size:90%;">rTFGjqByEtA</td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">VideoType:</td><td id="videotype" style="font-size:90%;">YOUTUBE</p><p></td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">URL:</td><td id="url" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Embed String:</td><td id="videoembedstring" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Caption:</td><td id="videocaption" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Credit:</td><td id="videocredit" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr><tr><td style="font-weight:bold;font-size:100%;vertical-align:top;text-align:right;border:none;">Video Position:</td><td id="videoposition" style="font-size:90%;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p style="margin-top:10px;font-size:70%;color:#555;">(use the &#8220;for files&#8230;&#8221; link above to associate attached files with this source)</p></videoMeta></div>

Game Commission’s annual dove banding program yields interesting results