Neelam C. Poudyal

Understanding hunter satisfaction and behavior under normal and abnormal situations is important for effective management of game species by state wildlife agencies. SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) created a global pandemic that coincided with the 2020 spring wild turkey hunting season. Concern was expressed by some wild turkey researchers and biologists that COVID-19 lockdown protocols could result in increased hunting effort and unsustainable harvests because of people having more free time. We assessed how COVID-19 and associated lockdown protocols affected hunter satisfaction and behavior during...

Many states throughout the range of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) have delayed their spring wild turkey hunting seasons to allow reproductively active males more time to breed before being harvested and to potentially increase population fecundity rates. Six states in the Southeast recently delayed their spring hunting season by 7 to 14 days. However, there are no published data indicating their previous season frameworks had a deleterious effect on wild turkey reproduction or that delaying the season increased fecundity. In addition to potentially affecting turkey...

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurological disease that affects cervid species including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus).  As of 2021, it occurs in seven southeastern states, and more discoveries in the region are likely to occur. Hunter education regarding CWD is critical to obtain support for disease management actions that rely on hunter participation but potentially are in opposition to typical hunter objectives. In August 2018, we provided educational programming on CWD to 84 members of a deer hunting club in west Tennessee. After CWD was discovered...

Public fishing areas (PFAs) in Georgia are intensively managed freshwater impoundments that provide a variety of fishing opportunities to an- glers. Management efforts and fishing regulations at these PFAs depend on understanding basic aspects of recreational fishing pressure, catch, and har- vest. Accordingly, we conducted a roving creel survey during January–December 2013 at Marben PFA in middle Georgia to quantify sport fishing total effort, catch, harvest, and fish catch by species, number, and weight in 14 lakes. Almost all of the anglers interviewed (84% of the 1159 parties) targeted...

Literature on recreational fisheries has shown that many aspects of the fishing experience that are non-catch related influence angler satisfaction. However, satisfaction as an independent metric may fail to produce sufficient information regarding perceptions of fishing quality, which may be a more salient component of the fishing experience from a management perspective. Therefore, this study focused on what influences fishing quality in the minds of anglers. We used data collected from a year-long, on-site survey of anglers at the Marben Public Fishing Area (PFA) near Mansfield, Georgia...