§704 Determination as to when and how migratory birds may be taken, killed, or possessed

Summary

The Secretary of the Interior must make rules about when and how migratory birds (and their parts, nests, or eggs) may be hunted, taken, kept, sold, or moved. The Secretary must consider things like climate zones, where and how many the birds are, their economic value, breeding habits, and migration timing and routes. Any rules the Secretary makes must be approved by the President before they take effect. People may not hunt migratory game birds by using bait or over baited areas if they know or should know the area is baited. It is also illegal to put bait down to cause someone to hunt there. For ducks, mergansers, and coots, the Secretary should accept each flyway council’s recommended closing date for the federal hunting framework if it is science-based and sustainable, and states may set their closing date under that framework. The federal closing date cannot be later than January 31. States may add 2 youth hunting days and 2 days for veterans (as defined in federal law) and active-duty military (including Guard and Reserves on active duty, not for training) for certain eligible species (ducks, geese, swans, mergansers, coots, moorhens, and gallinules) if those days are science-based and sustainable. Those extra days must only cover eligible species, must be within 14 days before or after the federal season for ducks/mergansers/coots, follow the federal framework, and the total season for any species (including added days) cannot exceed 107 days. A state may combine youth and veterans’ days but may not add more than 4 extra days total. The Secretary must put these rules in place for the 2019–2020 season and every season after.