Reservation hunting hours differ from state’s

Waterfowl and upland game bird hunters on the Flathead Reservation were recently alerted that the legal shooting hour times table has been amended to reflect Daylight Savings Time.

While the hunting seasons for waterfowl and upland game birds on the eservation do match Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks start and end dates, the shooting hours differ. The table in the regulations that were released last spring did not reflect fall Daylight Savings Time; visit www.csktnrd.org/wildlife to download the updated sunrise and sunset times.

According to a press release from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, hunters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with beginning and ending shooting hours prior to hunting. These time differences occur in order to address human safety concerns, due to high numbers of hunters on the landscape.

The later and earlier hours also help increase hunters’ ability to identify target animals, particularly hen and rooster pheasants since it can be difficult to determine the sex of pheasants in the Mission Valley before daylight.

Both pheasant and waterfowl hunters overlap in many of the same hunting areas within the Reservation, which makes it too difficult to enforce different hunting hours for pheasants and waterfowl on the same landscape, in the same areas.

Waterfowl hunting shooting hours change on Jan. 2, once the pheasant season has closed.

For more information, email Kari.Kingery@cskt.org.