News

Legislators Need Courage,
Mourning Doves Need Help

10/19/2001 - Traverse City Record Eagle

It's mourning dove legislation season again. Advocates of a hunting season on the protected songbird are starting a letter campaign to drum up support for ending Michigan's 96-year ban on hunting them.

This has been a bad idea every time it's come up, and it still is.

Killing mourning doves isn't hunting in the sportsmen sense of the word. It's more like target practice.

If that seems too harsh, consider this: One dead dove amounts to about an ounce of edible flesh. You have to kill a dozen to get a meal. It also doesn't take much to kill a mourning dove. It has an erratic flight pattern that some hunters say make them a challenge to shoot, but it's not a wily creature. You don't have to walk over rough terrain, climb a tree or even be quiet to kill one. All you have to do is sit and shoot.

A hunting season on mourning doves also would create confusion and likely result in the killing of other protected birds.

The push for a mourning dove season was a hot topic in the lame-duck Legislature late last fall. Major supporters then were the National Rifle Association, Michigan United Conservation Clubs and state Department of Natural Resources.

That campaign failed last December by one vote - a courageous one by Sen. Walter North of St. Ignace after public outcry and legislative debate.

Even many hunters were opposed. In the Legislature, Sen. Harry Gast, a St. Joseph Republican and a member of both the NRA and MUCC, said this of would-be dove hunters: "These aren't hunters, they are something less than hunters." Another lawmaker/hunter, Sen. Gary Peterson, sent out Christmas cards that showed a picture of the dove and the word "Peace."

Now, dove hunting advocates want to try again.

Rep. Susan Tabor, R-Delta Township, who introduced the legislation last time, has agreed to help Pheasants Forever wage a letter campaign to gauge whether there is enough support to reintroduce a bill to legalize dove hunting. The Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Ownership urges people to promote passage of the dove hunting bill by writing Gov. John Engler. A new group, Dove Sportsmen's Society of Michigan, was formed this summer to help promote legislation to create a dove season.

There have been several efforts in recent years to create the mourning dove hunting season. The Senate passed similar bills three times, most recently in 1995, but it died in the house. In 1987, a court stopped the Michigan Natural Resources Commission from establishing a season without the Legislature's approval.

This new effort should be resisted, too. And all of northern Michigan's legislators - not just North - should oppose the legislation if it comes up again. Last time, all of our region's other lawmakers - Sen. George McManus of Traverse City, Reps. Jason Alle of Traverse City, Ken Bradstreet of Gaylord, Andy Neumann of Alpena, David Mead of Beulah and Scott Shackleton of Sault Ste. Marie - voted for it.

May this new push for a dove hunting season be shot down before it even gets to the Legislature. Opponents should fire off their own letters to the governor, Tabor and their lawmakers.

A season on mourning doves isn't about sportsmanship and good hunting ethics. It's about senseless killing.

May the guns stay silent on this one so that we can continue to hear the melancholy coo of this protected bird.

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