Minnesota Intensive Harvest Early August Canada Goose Season Discontinued

The last three years Minnesota Duck and Goose Hunters have had the opportunity to hunt Canada geese during the month of August in majority of Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has decided to end the season and put it out of action, for now. I discussed this with Waterfowl Specialist with the Minnesota DNR. He told me the why August Goose Season in Minnesota was discontinued for 2016 season. It’s going back to the normal dates of early September. He confirmed my suspicions of why they had gone against having it for a fourth year. It has become a controversial topic for majority of hunters. Most hunters I’ve discussed it with have had strong feelings for one way or the other. Most did like having the opportunity to hunt geese for a longer amount of time. On the other hand, it affects hunting for not only geese down the road, but also for ducks. This puts another 3 weeks of pressure on any body of water holding waterfowl. The Waterfowl Specialist with the MN DNR said that they studies they found on banded geese killed in August and September did not rise. In the past, Minnesota Goose and Duck Hunters harvested between 80,000-100,000 geese in the month of September. Those numbers did not change much when the August season was added in order to give Minnesota Waterfowlers extra time to harvest more of our local population of birds.