Instructions for Completing the Harvest Survey
If you received an invitation:
Enter your personal invitation code from the letter or email that was sent to you. You will be asked if you will be hunting during the current hunting season (email invitations may allow you to answer this question without entering an invitation code). If you do not intend to hunt, select "I am not hunting." This will record your response and no further action is needed. If you do intend to hunt, select "I am hunting" and it will direct you to the page where you create a password, which allows you to access your hunt log throughout the season. Once registered, you can enter each of your hunts into a hunt log. For the purposes of our survey, a "hunt" is defined as all hunting activity in one county on one day. Alternatively, you can just enter your season totals by clicking on the "SEASON TOTALS" link.
To enter a hunt, you will be asked 4 questions:
- What was the date of your hunt?
- In which county did you hunt?
- Which birds did you hunt?
- How many birds did you shoot (either killed and retrieved or downed but lost)?
Please remember:
Only record your hunting activity for that species group, and only in the state for which you were selected. If you did not shoot any birds during a hunt, please enter the date and county of the hunt, and record zero (0) shot for that day. Do not include birds shot by other people - this survey should only reflect the birds you killed, or downed and lost.
You will have the opportunity to edit the information entered before submitting the entry, and even after it has been submitted to the hunt log. You may also add comments about your hunt for your own use. Once you submit your hunt, it will show up in your hunt log. You may add hunts during the season or after you are finished hunting. When you are finished hunting for the season and have entered all your hunts, check the "I am done hunting" box and submit your hunting results for the season.
Identifying the birds you hunted
States have different regulations about migratory bird hunting. In this survey we ask you to tell us about different species groups you hunted. If you are unsure about the species you killed, you can click on the information icon next to the "Birds Hunted" heading in question 3, "Which birds did you hunt?" where you will find regulatory species definitions for each state.
Entering season totals
If you only remember the days you hunted or the total number of birds you shot, you may enter your season totals instead of individual hunts by clicking on the SEASON TOTALS link instead of selecting Add New Hunt. However, once you have entered a hunt, you will not be able to enter season totals unless you delete your hunting log entries.
Editing your hunt log or season totals
You can easily edit the hunting information in any of your hunt log entries by clicking on the edit icon under Actions to the left of the entry. To edit your season totals, you must first reopen the survey on your survey home page, then click on the SEASON TOTALS link which will open the window where you can edit your entries. If you still have questions about the surveys, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page or send us an email on our Contact Us page.