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Texas Will Open South-Zone Mourning-Dove Season on September 1 for First Time in Over a Century

A mourning dove parent beside two chicks in a twig nest
Conservation · Management

Texas will open mourning-dove hunting in its South Zone on 1 September 2026 for the first time after more than a century of later opening dates. The change is allowed as a three-year experiment, with extra monitoring to assess whether the earlier season affects the birds.

Late Nesting Had Kept the South Zone on a Later Schedule

The mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) can breed late into summer in southern Texas. Federal regulations had therefore kept the South Zone from opening in early September because of longstanding concern about hunting during the late-nesting period.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) re-examined biological information including population abundance, hatch dates, harvest rates and current harvest strategies. The department concluded that, based on the best available information, an earlier opener was not expected to have a biological impact on mourning doves. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then approved a change to the federal framework that allows the South Zone to open with the North and Central zones.

The Earlier Opening Is a Three-Year Experiment

The change is not yet permanent. Federal regulations allow the new opening date on a three-year experimental basis, and TPWD says biologists will conduct additional monitoring during that period. Earlier commission documents specify that this can include harvest surveys and possible collection of wings from harvested birds to look for biological effects in South Texas.

The regular season will therefore open statewide on 1 September. The former Special White-winged Dove Days in the South Zone, which provided limited early-season hunting before the regular opener, have been eliminated as part of the new arrangement.

The experiment begins in a year when Texas mourning-dove numbers are near a record. Spring surveys estimated about 36.7 million birds statewide in 2026, 2% more than in 2025 and just below the record estimate of 37.5 million in 2016. TPWD also reported substantial spring rainfall and good habitat conditions across much of the state.

For South Texas, the central question is now whether moving hunting into a period that was historically restricted because of late nesting produces any measurable population effect. The three-year monitoring period is intended to provide the evidence needed to evaluate that change.

Sources and image credit

  1. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — Strong Dove Population Numbers Anticipated as Hunters Fly Toward Opening DayOfficial TPWD release dated 21 August 2026. Confirms the first statewide 1 September opening, the historical late-nesting concern in the South Zone, the three-year experimental basis, extra monitoring and the 2026 mourning-dove population estimate.
  2. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — March 26, 2026 Commission Meeting Agenda, Item 3Official commission material documenting the biological re-examination of abundance, hatch dates, harvest rates and harvest strategies, and the federal approval for the South Zone framework change.
  3. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — January 21–22, 2026 Commission Work Session TranscriptOfficial transcript describing the three-year experiment and planned monitoring, including harvest surveys and possible wing collections.

Image: Andrew Atzert — mourning dove parent with two chicks in a twig nest, Mesa, Arizona, 21 July 2008; Wikimedia Commons/Flickr; representative image illustrating late nesting, not from the Texas monitoring. CC BY 2.0. · CC BY 2.0 · Source

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