I take it you're against open water goose hunting that takes place for a couple weeks to over a month before regular duck opener?
You are correct, I am against the water hunting for early geese.
What I really want is for your opinion, my opinion, the commissioner's opinion, every other hunter's opinion, non-hunter opinions, or anti-hunter's opinions to not have any bearing into how hunting seasons and regulations are determined.
What I really want is a uniform systematic set of processes that result in consistent decisions that are justified from a science based approach in order to eliminate bias. It's the only way to ensure these decisions are made in the best interest of the wildlife they're supposedly protecting instead of becoming political or self-serving like they often are.
We all need to move past wanting what our personal opinion would dictate. It's great that you have fond memories of YWD, a lot of people do. Why should some positive opinions for YWD justify having it if it's not creating hunters? Or make it exempt from scientific studies to find out it's impact? Why should your opinion as the result of your positive experience be used as a reason to not hold a teal season, where I'm sure many positive experiences would also be made forming opinions to support it?
If we keep encouraging our opinions to matter in how these decisions are reached then we can't complain when other's opinions matter more than ours. The DNR is an agency in the executive branch of our government in charge of managing the natural resources in the best interest of the state's citizens. Citizens, not hunters. In court all citizens have to be treated equally, whether or not they bought a hunting license. Eventually they're going to figure that out. Eventually they and their opinions are going to vastly outnumber us and ours.
It might seem fine to have the popular opinion of duck hunters or the personal opinion of a commissioner stop a teal season now (only because you share the same opinion) but are you going to be fine when it's the popular opinion of the anti-hunting citizen majority to stop all hunting seasons? What about when some extreme liberal gets elected governor and appoints some PETA **** as commissioner....we do live in MN afterall....do you want her being able to use her personal opinion to decide if a season should be opened?
I don't.
I actually do agree with a lot of what you are saying here, and I wish there was a good way to use a science based approach to try and make decisions like these other than just what public opinion is. However I also think that there is a fine line with that. Scientifically without a teal season would teal become overpopulated and have detrimental impacts on the population? I hardly think so, but at the same time the reason some people want it is to be able to have more opportunity to get out and enjoy the resource.
I have no problem with that, for me I just think that it would create more days in the field, but less enjoyment per day. It is the same with the August goose season, it causes more birds to be harvested overall, but it results in less birds per day average and a lower satisfaction among hunters in the surveys I have seen anyway. In fact I don't think there is much for a duck season that we could scientifically prove was necessary for ducks. Now does it help out for paying for habitat conservation? Yes, it does tremendously, but if there was no hunting of them would they go extinct, maybe, but I doubt it. So I think we really need to be careful with what is scientifically necessary and what the public and the hunting public wants.
I also wish that there was a good way to try and measure whether or not YWD is recruiting hunters. I know when I was younger there were a few other types of hunting such as goose and pheasant hunting that I had bad experiences with. Mostly involving not being able to effectively harvest any birds because hunting in a group doesn't make very convenient for a kid that is just starting out. For many years I did not enjoy hunting geese and pheasants. I think that good experiences with duck hunting is what got me back into the geese a little, but to this day I do not enjoy hunting pheasants much, and that's what my dad absolutely loved to do when I was younger and still does. In all honesty my dad was not really much of a duck hunter, and had quit for a number of years until I was old enough, but he saw the opportunity to take me for YWD, and when he saw how much I enjoyed it he started to enjoy it more as well. To the point now that he makes it out quite a bit, and we try to make at least one trip somewhere per year to hunt ducks together.
I can't say for sure whether or not I would be a duck hunter without YWD, but I think it definitely made an impact on my life, and changed my perspectives.
And maybe I am wrong, but around me it seems like a teal season would have almost the same number of hunters as a normal opening day, but you would only be able to shoot at 1/3 to 1/2 of the birds. I feel it would add unnecessary pressure to the wood duck population that would find other spots to be before the season actually opens. But like you said it is just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own.