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On Aug. 30, two days before dove season began, Texas Parks and Wildlife began an ill-conceived scientific study comparing the effectiveness of steel shot vs. lead shot.

They brought in volunteers to shoot doves under the watchful eye of trained observers. Using a special permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they shot the birds in Brown County, one of the most popular dove hunting counties in Texas, in an exercise that ranks among the worst public relations blunders in TP&W history.

According to Scott Boruff, TP&W's deputy director, nobody in the executive office knew the study was happening. At least, they didn't know when it was happening. The dove hunters of Texas certainly were not informed.

Once word reached TP&W executives that their department was involved in shooting doves out of season, Boruff and his boss, Carter Smith, temporarily pulled the plug, triggering indignation from Jay Roberson, the state biologist who designed the study.

Roberson wrote in an e-mail that short-circuiting the study wasted manpower and financial resources. In a phone conversation, he blamed the people who reported doves being shot out of season, next to a public road, and he's not real happy with the media for reporting the preseason hunt.

The pure science may well require that a steel shot lethality study be conducted before the season, when nobody else is hunting and there's no chance of a bird that was wounded in a nearby field flying into the study field and being collected.

In fact, TP&W officials say they will repeat the study next year, again before the season. If that's the case, here's how you make it semi-palatable to the state's 400,000 dove hunters:

First, you send out news releases and hold public meetings detailing why you're using sportsmen's money to do a steel-shot study with doves. You explain to the public why the study is necessary and why it cannot be done during hunting season.

Next, you lease a piece of hunting property large enough that killing 500 doves before the season will not impact any hunter on an adjacent property once the season opens. How much land is required? I don't know. Roberson is the science expert. He knows the numbers on how far doves fly to feed and water.

Finally, you send out a news release explaining where and when the preseason hunt will be held. Texas dove hunters count the days of a long, hot summer until that magic moment called opening day.

The dove season opener deserves its magnified importance as the first hunting season of the fall. Opening day should be a time for celebration. Dove hunts are planned months in advance. Motels around Brownwood and other dove hot spots are booked solid. Hunting guides spend hours scouting for dove concentrations, guessing and second-guessing the best spots to place their clients.

An average hunter traveling from Dallas to Brownwood for two days of dove hunting probably spends $500. It is unacceptable for a state agency to run an unpublicized preseason hunting study that negatively impacts even one dove hunter.