Dove-Tales of Success

Through WVDNR’s efforts at Wildlife Management Areas, mourning doves are one of many creatures you’ll see this season.

This story was originally published in the September 2024 issue of Wonderful West Virginia. To subscribe, visit wonderfulwv.com.

Written by dawn Nolan

photographed by Joey Herron

West Virginia is known for its abundant wildlife and diverse ecological landscape. It also offers superior outdoor recreation, including fishing and hunting. One way that the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WVDNR) is working to maintain these critical environments, while also offering public opportunities to engage in regulated shooting seasons, is by dedicating some of the land within certain wildlife management areas (WMAs) to the specific management of habitats for migratory game birds, like mourning doves.

What is a WMA?

Covering 1.4 million acres, or approximately 8%, of the state’s total land area, WMAs are public lands maintained by the WVDNR as part of the Statewide Wildlife Management Program. Projects range from the planting of trees and shrubs and the development of wetlands to the construction of roads and trails.

“WMAs are designed to conserve and manage high-quality habitats for a vast array of wildlife species,” says Steven Rauch, assistant chief of game management for the WVDNR Wildlife Resources Section. “They provide public access for wildlife-associated activities such as hunting, fishing, and bird watching.”

After the intense logging and damaging wildfires of the early 1900s, much West Virginia wildlife was left without viable habitat where it could safely thrive and reproduce. Wildlife officials were left to create new ways to re-establish habitats and rebuild population numbers after the devastation. To address the problem, a law was passed in 1915 allowing for the establishment of game refuges where no hunting was allowed, according to the West Virginia Conservation Agency. In 1922, familiar lands such as Tibbs Run, Jackson’s Mill, and French Creek were turned into game refuges through the joint efforts of the state and private landowners.

The first state-owned “forest and game refuge,” as it was referred to at the time, was purchased by the Game and Fish Commission, now known as the WVDNR, in Pocahontas County in 1923. The Seneca State Forest and Game Refuge became a launching point for other similar purchases, several of which still exist in some form today. Later, in 1936, the state of West Virginia and the U.S. Forest Service made a cooperative agreement to establish such areas within the Monongahela National Forest. The forest and game refuges were renamed wildlife management areas in 1989 after being opened for hunting and fishing.

According to Rauch, there are now a total of 96 WMAs across the state, divided into six districts, including those within state and national forests and national wildlife refuges. “DNR’s Wildlife Resources Section co-manages WMAs within state forests with other state agencies and the federal government for national forests,” he explains.

Lands acquired for WMAs are typically purchased by the state with hunting license dollars. However, some are purchased with federal aid dollars that are collected from the excise tax on firearms and ammunition.

Two of the largest state-owned WMAs are Sleepy Creek WMA in Berkeley and Morgan counties and East Lynn Lake WMA in Wayne County. The largest WMA within a West Virginia national forest—Monongahela—is Cranberry WMA, which spans Nicholas, Webster, Pocahontas, and Greenbrier counties.

Call of the Doves

Mourning doves are small songbirds—typically measuring 9–13 inches in length—known for their audible “coo.” They are one of the most common birds in North America and can be found throughout much of the United States in open or semi-open habitats like farmland and forest clearings and even in backyards and along power lines. They are classified in the same scientific family as pigeons but can be physically differentiated by their tan-gray body coloring, a blue-ish hue around their eyes, wings, heads, and tails, and black spots on their wings. Mourning doves are ground-feeding birds that subsist primarily on seeds.

Similarly to ducks, geese, woodcock, and certain other fowl, mourning doves are classified as migratory game birds, which can be hunted in accordance with state and federal regulations. In fact, per the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, mourning doves are considered the “most hunted migratory game bird in North America.” About 6%, or 24 million, are harvested each year.

Dove hunting is very popular in West Virginia, Rauch says, and some of the wildlife management areas are prime territory for it. “From Stonewall Jackson in Lewis County to McClintic in Mason, from the Eastern Panhandle to the Greenbrier Valley, they are located all over the state.”

There are also various levels of management. In certain WMAs, wildlife resources specialists plant small grain fields where doves can feed. “That type of management not only benefits the birds, providing them feeding places where they can regain their energy as they migrate throughout the state, but also, during regulated dove season, it provides opportunities for hunters,” explains Rauch.

Hillcrest WMA in Hancock County is one WMA that receives a significant amount of habitat management, Rauch says, for doves. A former farm that spans more than 2,000 acres, Hillcrest has old fields, apple orchards, croplands, and scattered woodlots that are hunting grounds for ring-necked pheasant, rabbit, turkey, deer, and mourning doves. “We have designated fields that we plant for dove hunting,” says Wildlife Resources Specialist Josh Allison. “That usually starts in the spring—normally April or May—with millet, sorghum, buckwheat, and sunflowers. We plant winter wheat at the end of September or first of October. We start mowing in the first part of August. Sometimes we use prescribed fire to get rid of the vegetation so that the doves can get the seeds on the bare ground.”

On the Hunt

Beginning at noon and continuing to sunset on September 1, the first day of dove hunting season is often viewed as the start of the fall hunting season. It is a three-part season, with three sets of designated weeks running through the end of January with breaks in between. Dates for the upcoming season are September 1–October 13, 2024; November 4–17, 2024; and December 16, 2024–January 17, 2025. After opening day, hunting can be conducted from one half-hour before sunrise to sunset.

The daily bag limit, or the maximum number of doves an individual hunter is allowed to take in any one day is 15. The possession limit, the maximum number of doves possessed by any one person in West Virginia, is 45.

A valid hunting license and a Harvest Information Program (HIP) registration card are required to hunt doves. HIP cards are free and available online at

WVhunt.com or through all hunting license agents. Shotguns are limited to three shells for migratory birds, so those that are capable of holding more must be plugged.

If you capture a bird with a federal band or color marker, please report it online at www.reportband.gov. This information is used by the Bird Banding Laboratory, part of the United States Geological Survey, to monitor the status and trends of resident and migratory bird populations, and in turn is used to determine annual regulations.

Copies of the 2024–2025 Migratory Bird Hunting Regulations can be viewed on the West Virginia DNR website, WVdnr.gov/hunting-regulations, or obtained at WVDNR district offices.