Doves Tagged to Aid Study Bands Will Help Track Population

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Working atop the dikes Thursday at the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, half a dozen members of the Youth Conservation Corps spent the day banding mourning doves.

The banding is part of a national effort to monitor dove populations, which are declining in some areas.

Each of the metal tags affixed to the legs of 150 doves at the refuge during the past month has a unique identification number and a telephone number for hunters to call when they harvest the birds.

Mourning doves are an important migratory game bird, said Russ Webb, a refuge biologist with the Savannah Coastal Refuges Complex. Information from hunters about where the doves are harvested, and the recapture of birds in future tagging studies, will help researchers understand their population dynamics better.

Mr. Webb was a Youth Con-servation Corps member in 1985 and 1986.

The program – sponsored by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – offers outdoor summer employment to teenagers ages 15-18.

Projects include building trails, maintaining fences, cleaning up campgrounds, improving wildlife habitat and thinning timber stands.

Originally published by Morris News Service.

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