This state's classification carries no date range for the species.
New Jersey has no open hunting season for mourning dove at all, confirmed by NJDEP's own 2025-26 digest, which lists mourning dove under a "Closed / None" row alongside swans, harlequin duck, king rail and sandhill crane, and by the 2026-27 proposed-seasons document (Mar. 5, 2026), which contains no dove section whatsoever. This is a long-standing, structural non-game classification (per secondary reporting, in place for decades, reflecting NJ treating mourning dove as non-game rather than a huntable species), not a year-to-year dates gap, unlike most neighboring Mid-Atlantic states (PA, DE, MD) which do have active dove seasons.
New Jersey has no dove hunting season at all (a standing, structural non-game classification), and no sub-state distribution signal exists in the breeding bird atlas abundance data, in Christmas Bird Count or Breeding Bird Survey regional comparisons, or in eBird Status and Trends. The species is uniformly described as common and widespread statewide, with no zone system and no cited region-by-region density data. The one NJ-specific geographic fact is that NJDFW's baseline-monitoring dove banding program, run in anticipation of a possible future season, operates out of Great Swamp NWR in Morris County.
No formal population survey program exists for this species in this state.
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