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DAS: The Ball is in Our Court

Shortly after Governor Granholm signed the bill legalizing the shooting of Mourning Doves in Michigan after ninety-nine years of protection, I was watching a Sunday morning discussion on public television. One of the participants predicted that the effort to reinstate protection for these birds will fail because birders don't have the staying power to succeed in putting the issue on the ballot. As of this writing we are nearly a hundred and fifty thousand signatures short of proving him wrong, with three short, cold months to get the job done. To succeed, we all need to join in this effort.

Detroit Audubon Society has roughly five thousand members. Michigan Audubon and its chapters have somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand members. If every voting member of every Audubon chapter plus all the members of the other environmental and animal protection groups in the state sign the petition, we will still be short of achieving our goal of two hundred and fifty thousand signatures.

The powerful lobby that pushed the bill through the legislature and persuaded the governor to sign it is a formidable and well financed coalition, but we have stopped them before, and if we are willing to make the effort, we will do it again. We have a large majority of the voting public on our side, but before they can vote on the issue, we need to get the signatures that will place the initiative on the ballot, then motivate them to vote. For this to happen, we need your help.

Every petition has room for signatures of fifteen registered voters. If each of our five thousand members gets ten to fifteen people to sign a petition, we will have fifty to seventy-five thousand signatures. With similar efforts from Michigan Audubon and the other organizations that support the cause, we can easily meet our goal. When the requisite number of signatures are certified, the killing will stop until the issue is voted on in 2006.

You don't need to go door to door or stop strangers on the street. Those of us who have attended community events or stood outside post offices or voting places have found that just standing there with a sign around our neck was all we needed to do. I was able to gather fifty signatures within an hour without saying a word except to respond to questions or say "thank you". Numerous strangers have walked up to me and said they had been looking for someone with a petition for the doves. 

All you need to do is talk to your friends, family members, and casual acquaintances at work or that holiday get together. Make sure that they are registered voters and haven't already signed the petition. Have a form for their county, or a few blanks on hand so you can start one for them. You don't need to fill up a sheet in order to send it in, and if someone makes a mistake, it won't affect the rest of the petition, just cross out that line and have them fill in the next one. Read and follow the instructions carefully. You'll be surprised how quickly and easily you can get signatures.

We need your help! For petitions, please call (248) 545 2929, drop by the DAS office (8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., Tues-Thurs), or send a stamped, self addressed envelope to our office (1320 North Campbell Road, Royal Oak, MI 48067). For more information on how you can help, visit www.StopShootingDoves.org or call (517) 321 DOVE.

One final thought: Rep Tabor, sponsor of the bill, was recently reported as stating that she had fired 150 shots and only bagged one dove as proof that they are not endangered in our state. How many do you suppose she may have hit without knocking them to the ground? I wonder how much wildlife will be lost to the lead pellets that lie scattered over the area from those 149 "wasted" shots. Please put your best effort into reinstating the protection of these beautiful and peaceful creatures. Remember, the ball is in our court.

Fred Charbonneau
Former President of Detroit Audubon Society

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