By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

Texas dove hunters have just a few days left to sign up for an opportunity to win a brand-new pickup truck, UTV, exotic hunting opportunities, gear and other prizes as part of this year’s Banded Bird Challenge hosted by the Texas Dove Hunters Association (TDHA).

The last day to sign-up for the challenge is Aug. 31.

“We have one big change that was made to policy, and that is the entry deadline,” Bobby Thornton, TDHA co-founder, said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “It used to be that you had to enter before you harvested the bird. That has now changed. Now you cannot enter once the season has started.”

The challenge opens Sept. 1, when dove hunting season opens in the north and central zones, and participation is easy.

When hunters bag a Eurasian collared-dove with an orange tag, all they have to do is call the number on the tag and give the band identification number and the location the bird was bagged to the association.

“The top prize, which we almost gave away last year, is a brand-new truck from Hoffpauir. It’s a pre-designated number on a band, and we were literally one number off last year,” Thornton said. “Then, of course we have our Polaris Ranger, which Hoffpauir has donated to us each year, and we’ve given one of those away.”

Other prizes include an exotic hunt for a Scimitar Horned Oryx at RecordBuck Ranch in Utopia, an exotic hunt for a trophy hybrid sheep at G2 Ranch in Pearsall, a fishing trip for trophy trout on Baffin Bay, a cedar picnic cooler, $500 gift card to McKenna Quinn, leather hunting gear and more.

“We have what we call the prize division, which is, of course, the bands. Then we also have the First Flight Division, which is the scholarship for high school students. If they are in high school and they harvest one, then they will receive a $1,000 scholarship,” Thornton said. “Then we have the age 10-13 division, First Flight Youth Division, which is a hunt for two (the youth and a parent or guardian) for an overnight trip with meals and lodging.”

The challenge is a research project designed to learn more about invasive Eurasian collared-doves and their habits.

“This is the year we’ve been waiting for. This is year five. The biologists tell us we need to collect at least five years of data in order to be able to get any significant results from the research,” Thornton said. “We’ll be able to tell more about the habitat preferences of these birds, why they’re moving, where they’re moving and what’s driving them to move. We’ve already found some really, really interesting results.”

Over the past five years, TDHA has captured, tagged and released more than 3,500 Eurasian collared-doves in Texas.

Several thousand of the tagged birds are still out there, and the tags do not expire, giving hunters many opportunities to win.

“We still to-date have never had a bird turned in from outside the state, and there’s nothing that says it’s Texas-only on the tag. So they don’t know when they call. That to me tells us, generally speaking, that the birds are staying put. They like it where they are,” Thornton said.

The majority of the banded birds, at 78%, head north after being released.

“It’s crazy. Even those that are released down in the Valley, they’re headed back north,” Thornton said. “We trap them all in one area for that very reason. We want to see where they’re going, those that are released, and what they call home. I don’t know if you would call that a migratory instinct or more of a homing instinct.”

To continue to gather valuable data like this, Thornton said it’s important that dove hunters call in their bands even if they did not enter the Banded Bird Challenge.

“We still encourage everyone to turn in their bands, even if they had not entered, once the season starts because that’s important data for us to collect,” Thornton said. “They will receive a TDHA membership, as well as a certificate on the history of that bird.”

Eurasian collared-doves are an invasive species, and do not count toward a hunters’ daily bag limit.

“The one thing we absolutely encourage is that whenever you harvest and clean your birds, if you’re cleaning a Eurasian, leave a wing on it because, in the event you do have 15 birds plus a couple with it that are Eurasians, you have to be able to prove to that game warden that they are Eurasians, and they don’t count against your bag limit,” Thornton said.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Eurasian collared-doves tend to be larger and more aggressive than native doves.

They have a pale gray body, black bill, a white-squared underside to their tail and a narrow black collar on the back of their necks.

Hunters can enter the Banded Bird Challenge through Aug. 31 at BandedBirdChallenge.com.