3 Zone Option 1
3 Zone Option 1 – East, West, and Coastal zones with boundaries described as:
From the Arkansas-Louisiana border south on HWY 167; thence west on LA 106 to Oakdale; thence south on HWY 165 to Kinder; thence west on HWY 190/LA 12 to the Texas state line. From the junction of HWY 167 and LA 106 south along HWY 167 to Lafayette; thence southeast along HWY 90 to Boutte; thence along HWY 310 across the Mississippi River; thence west (up river) along the east bank of the Mississippi River to the St. Charles/St. John the Baptist Parish line; thence along LA 628 to LaPlace; thence north on HWY 51 to I-55N to I-12; thence east along I-12 to Slidell; thence east along I-10 to the Mississippi state line.
Intentions: The first intention is to create a 3rd zone by dividing the current West zone into a Coastal zone and a West Zone. The western and northwestern portion of the state are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain Ecoregion, but habitats are generally different from the coastal marshes and associated agricultural fields of the West zone and different from the Mississippi Alluvial Valley of the East zone. Creating a 3rd zone in this area would allow setting season dates separate from the Coastal zone which could provide season dates more satisfying to hunters in that region and provide additional harvest opportunity for hunters that use more than 1 zone. One aspect of that new West zone is the straightening of the zone boundary in NW Louisiana from Jonesboro to the Arkansas border to both simplify the boundary and to put similar ecogeographic habitat types together.
The second intention is to put the coastal marshes around Lake Pontchartrain into the Coastal zone along with similar marsh types that are used by similar duck species have long been in the West Zone. When changes to the East zone season in 2011 reduced the number of early-season hunting days, LDWF received complaints from hunters in that region, so this option intends to group those similar habitats into a Coastal zone.
Information and map image provided by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries