Congrats! For those hunters lucky enough to harvest or find a banded duck, goose, crane or dove biologists ask that hunters report their recoveries to the Bird Banding Lab at: www.reportband.gov and by doing this you can help out the biologists. Even if the band was inscribed with a 1-800 telephone number, you can only report the band at the website. Hunters will be asked to provide the band number or numbers if the bird has more than one band. You will also need to provide where, when and how the band was recovered. Your contact information will also be requested in case there are any questions about the recovery. The Banding Lab will e-mail you a certificate of appreciation that includes information about the sex, age  and species of the bird, and where and when it was banded. You get to keep the band!

Biologists across the country band tens of thousands of ducks, geese and doves each summer. The primary reason migratory game birds are banded is to estimate harvest rates or survival rates. However, banding data can also be used to estimate population size, birds that are shot but not recovered, where harvested birds were banded, recovery rate and band reporting rate. Banding is incredibly important for the management of migratory game birds across the country. We appreciate all the information from hunters.