At its recent meeting, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved amendments to align state rules with federal frameworks for the 2025-26 migratory bird hunting seasons. These changes include removing September teal-only hunting days, maximizing falconry days, and increasing the daily bag limit on pintails from one to three.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service establishes migratory bird hunting regulation frameworks annually, incorporating input from states through the Flyway Council system. These frameworks form the basis for Florida’s regulations, necessitating FWC rule amendments to maintain compliance when federal changes occur. The removal of September teal-only hunting days is due to a blue-winged teal breeding population estimate of 4.599 million for 2024. According to USFWS guidelines, when this estimate falls between 3.3 and 4.7 million birds, Florida can retain five teal and wood duck hunting days but cannot have additional teal-only days.
The reduction in teal-only days also led to a loss of falconry days since they are linked in state rules. To address this, the amendment adds four falconry days to provide falconers with the maximum allowable number of days.
The increase in the daily bag limit on pintails is based on the Interim Northern Pintail Harvest Strategy. This strategy permits a three-bird daily bag limit in the Atlantic Flyway, which includes Florida if population status allows for an open pintail season across North America’s other flyways.
For further details on waterfowl hunting and management in Florida, visit MyFWC.com/Duck.
