Migratory bird permit (no cost) is required, in addition to hunting license, when taking or attempting to take ducks, geese, brants, coots, gallinules, rails, snipes, woodcocks, mourning doves and white-winged doves.

When obtaining the permit, you will be asked a few questions about last season’s harvest numbers. Your answers help improve accuracy of harvest data used in managing migratory bird populations.

Lifetime and five-year license holders must obtain the permit annually at county tax collectors’ offices or from license agents when taking or attempting to take migratory game birds. Permit is valid from Sept. 1 through March 31. A migratory bird permit is not required to take crows.

Migratory game bird hunters in Florida are required to have the Migratory Bird Permit checked on their hunting licenses or a Migratory Bird Permit attached to their license. To get the box checked or to receive the permit, you just have to fill out a short questionnaire when you buy your hunting license. That’s all it takes to validate your hunting license for hunting migratory game birds. It’s free, but you have to do it if you’re going to hunt ducks, geese, coots, common moorhens, rails, snipe, woodcocks, mourning doves or white-winged doves.

The information you provide when you obtain a Migratory Bird Permit is used in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Harvest Information Program (H.I.P.). H.I.P. is a system to enable biologists and managers to get a more accurate reading on how many migratory birds hunters take each year. H.I.P. will enable wildlife agencies to set season dates and bag limits to provide sportsmen with as much hunting opportunity as possible, because the agencies will be working with more accurate figures than ever before.

In the past, anti-hunting groups have cited the lack of accurate harvest information during their legal challenges of hunting seasons in some states. Information from H.I.P. will help preserve hunting and justify it as a valuable wildlife management tool during future court challenges.

Some hunters will receive surveys later in the season to record the numbers and species of birds they take during migratory bird hunting seasons. If you receive one of the surveys in the mail, filling it out is optional but extremely important to the future of migratory bird hunting in Florida and the whole country.

Completing the H.I.P. questionnaire to get the H.I.P. box checked on your hunting license is required by federal law before you hunt migratory game birds. It is illegal to hunt migratory game birds if you don’t take that step.

Hunters who have Lifetime or Five-year licenses should contact their county tax collector’s office or the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for H.I.P. questionnaires. Others should fill out the questionnaire and turn it in when they purchase their hunting licenses. Exemptions to the H.I.P. requirement include migratory game bird hunters who are under 16 years old, 65 years old or older, military personnel who are home on leave, hunting on their own homestead property or their parents’ or minor child’s homestead property or certified totally and permanently disabled.