The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a final rule that took effect on publication, ending the annual Federal Register rulemaking that has set migratory game bird hunting seasons for generations of American hunters. The rule removes sections 20.100 through 20.107 of title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the provisions that carried each state's season dates, shooting hours, and daily bag limits, and replaces them with a Migratory Game Bird Hunting memorandum posted on the agency's website.

The Service will issue that memorandum once every three years, on or before February 28, and will update it sooner when its biological decision frameworks prescribe a change. Annual harvest decisions continue. What changes is where the season numbers live and what legal form they carry.

For hunters, outfitters and landowners across the four flyways, the practical effect this fall is limited. State wildlife agencies still choose their own seasons within federal limits, and most already publish their own rulebooks. The consequential shift is structural. Season parameters that were codified federal regulations, produced through notice-and-comment rulemaking, will now appear in an agency document announced by notice.

Inside the Three-Year Memorandum Cycle

Under the process that ended with this rule, the Service published at least four proposed and final rulemaking documents each year to open the season. The agency told the public that pace had become unworkable, noting that across the 2018 through 2025 hunting seasons the final rule appeared on average seven days before hunting began. The Service described that timeline as placing undue strain on States, the public, and the Service.

The replacement codifies the process itself in 50 CFR part 20, subparts H and K. Subpart K keeps the nontoxic shot zone provisions at section 20.108 and the Tribal hunting provisions at section 20.110, and now codifies at section 20.109 the falconry season parameters that had previously appeared only in rulemaking preambles. Subpart N is eliminated, with the Service Migratory Bird Regulations Committee and Flyway Council provisions folded into subpart K.

A companion notice of availability published the same day releases the 2026 memorandum containing this season's limits. Comments on that document are due by September 30, 2026, under docket FWS-HQ-MB-2026-3335 at Regulations.gov.

The Biology That Did Not Change

The rule does not touch the science underneath the numbers. Authorization conditions for 24 species or species groups are still set by 16 decision frameworks, some of which the Service says have been in use for about 32 years. Adaptive harvest management for ducks, which weighs restrictive, moderate, liberal and closed alternatives against breeding population and habitat data, was first implemented in 1995. The Service noted that it and the Flyway Councils have not recommended departing from the general duck season framework prescriptions in that entire span.

Five general decision frameworks, one for each flyway and one for seasons spanning multiple flyways, consolidate Flyway Council harvest strategies and case-by-case decisions that previously lived outside any single document. Spring and winter surveys, status reports, and the two annual regulations committee meetings all continue on the same calendar.

There are currently 185 migratory game bird species that may be subject to open seasons. Regulations for the 2024-25 season opened hunting somewhere in the United States for 93 of them. The Service committed that it will not authorize a season through the memorandum for any species or species group that was not already authorized that year without initiating a new rulemaking. A formal Section 7 consultation produced a biological opinion concluding that the authorization conditions are not likely to jeopardize listed species or adversely modify critical habitat.

States Without Their Own Rulebook

By the agency's count, fewer than six states have no independent regulatory process and have relied on the Service to publish their seasons federally. The Service will keep publishing those as a separate memorandum for as long as a demonstrated need exists, on a state-by-state basis rather than flyway-wide. Only two states across the three westernmost flyways asked for that accommodation while they build their own processes. Several others asked the Service to stop publishing their seasons entirely, since federal text can diverge from a state that tightens its own rules mid-season.

Geography still governs the limits. The Atlantic Flyway runs from Maine through Florida and west to West Virginia. The Mississippi Flyway covers Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and ten other states. The Central Flyway takes in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oklahoma, and the portions of Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming east of the Continental Divide, along with eastern Montana counties. The Pacific Flyway holds California, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon among others. Hunters in every one of those states should note that 2026 is also a configuration year under the duck and dove zone guidelines, the first opportunity since 2021 for a state to change its zone and split season structure for the next five years.

Objections the Service Declined to Adopt

The proposed rule drew written comments from 28 individuals and organizations, including all four Flyway Councils, the Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 14 states, two non-government organizations and seven individuals. Every commenter except two who opposed hunting outright objected to the three year issuance cycle, citing insufficient coordination with the Councils and the absence of an implications assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and environmental review specific to that interval.

The Service made no change. It responded that it will continue making annual harvest decisions and will publish prescribed changes in years two and three of each cycle, and said it envisions issuing the full memorandum every three years while publishing only framework-driven changes in the intervening years. A separate objection about losing a federal repository of state season selections drew a response pointing to a database maintained by the Migratory Bird Program.

The agency estimates migratory game bird hunting generates about $2.7 billion in associated economic activity. That figure rests on the 2011 and 2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, which the Service describes as the most recent editions available, so it predates the current hunter participation picture by roughly a decade.

Reading the Limits Before Opening Day

Hunters should not assume last season's federal text applies. The authoritative source for this fall is the state agency rulebook, backed by the 2026 memorandum on the Migratory Bird Program site. Anyone who wants a say in how the limits were selected has until September 30 to file a comment, and the Service asked that comments focus specifically on the selection of alternative conditions in its decision frameworks based on application of current data.

Conservation groups, state agencies and hunters tracking oversight should watch two things next. State proposed regulations are due to the Service each May 31, and the next full memorandum is due on or before February 28, with a regulatory impact analysis attached to the primary three-year document. The notice releasing the memorandum was signed by Kevin Lilly, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.

The season structure itself is unchanged. What is gone is the annual codified federal record of every state season, and the annual rulemaking docket that came with it.

What Readers Want to Know

What actually changed? The Fish and Wildlife Service removed the annual state-by-state hunting seasons from the Code of Federal Regulations and replaced the yearly rulemaking with a memorandum that sets the same kinds of limits, issued every three years and updated when biological frameworks require it.

Are duck season dates or bag limits being cut? No. The rule is administrative. The 16 decision frameworks that determine season lengths, bag limits and shooting hours are unchanged, and the 2026 memorandum released alongside the rule contains this season's limits.

Where do I find my season dates now? Through your state wildlife agency, which sets seasons within the federal limits. The federal limits themselves are in the 2026 memorandum on the Service's Migratory Bird Program website and in the Regulations.gov docket.

Can the public still weigh in? Yes, but the mechanism has changed. Instead of commenting on proposed rules each year, the public comments on the memorandum through a Federal Register notice with a period of at least 30 days. The current window closes September 30, 2026.

Who objected to the new process? All four Flyway Councils, the Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 14 states, and two non-government organizations raised concerns about the three-year cycle. The Service acknowledged the objections and kept the cycle in place.

Does this affect Tribal hunting or crow seasons? Tribal authorization already worked through a similar process and remains at section 20.110. Crow hunting regulations sit in a different subpart and are not affected by the change in process, though the rule does revise that section to let Tribes establish crow hunting regulations alongside states.

What should hunters watch for next? The comment deadline is September 30, then the next full memorandum is due on or before February 28. States changing duck or dove zone configurations for the next five year period should confirm boundaries with their state agency.