Photo credit: Chelsi Burns/USFWS
Here’s something to look forward to: Louisiana is opening a new season for black-bellied whistling ducks. Yep, you heard that right. The Sportsman’s Paradise has set the dates for its first-ever experimental season for the bird, which is rarely targeted in North America.
For a little bit of background: black-bellied whistling ducks are characterized by a bright pink bill, long legs, and chestnut brown and black body feathers. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species is “found in southern portions of the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic flyways during summer, but they mostly leave the United States and migrate to Mexico and South America by early fall.”
That said, in recent years, the species appears to have been expanding its breeding range northward, including establishing year-round populations in Louisiana. The new range has allowed wildlife managers to add a new nine-day season in Louisiana, which will run from Oct. 3-11 in 2026.
“We felt that with the growing abundance of the species in the state, it is appropriate to provide a special season to our hunters,” said Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Secretary Tyler Bosworth in a press release. “It’s a chance for our state’s duck hunters to enjoy additional opportunity during a time between the September teal season and regular duck season, which opens in November.”
During the season, only black-bellied whistling ducks will be open, which explains one of the regulatory tweaks: shooting hours will be from sunrise until sunset to help hunters accurately ID the species. The bag limit is four birds with a twelve-bird possession limit. Additionally, hunters are required to get a free black-bellied duck hunting permit and report their harvest results to the LDWF.
Officials hope the new season will provide a fun new opportunity for hunters—and check the expansion of the species, which is known to congregate in urban areas and cause problems for agricultural producers.
“It’s sort of [been] a long time coming,” Jason Olszack, LDWF Waterfowl Program Manager, told StMaryNow. “The goal is to achieve a 15 percent harvest rate, which for most species that would control the population growth or kind of plateau it. I’m not even sure with a 9-day season and a 4-bird bag limit we can even achieve that. But we’ll be monitoring that, and we’ll continue to band black-bellied whistling ducks, and we’ll assess that too.”