(Area) The Iowa Department of Natural Resources joined its fellow agencies in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska on a joint project to check waterfowl regulations compliance.
The effort was referred to as Operation Early Birds. Officers in Southwest Iowa focused their attention on the Riverton area. “Tried to time it with the peak of the migration. They wanted to get out and check compliance with quite a few waterfowl hunters. Our officers spend a couple of days down in Fremont County at the Riverton complex area. During those four days they made 136 contacts with waterfowl hunters, issued 48 warnings and 23 citations in a 36 hour period.”
Bryan Hayes with the Iowa DNR Office in Lewis says the majority of hunters were in compliance. “That’s generally what we see. Common issues that our officers saw during this project was failure to register for the Harvest Information Program. All migratory bird hunters are supposed to register for HIP.”
Other common infractions were ducks not being left identifiable and hunters not having the federal migratory stamp.
