Attacks on Doves Weaken Wildlife Agencies' Credibility

Published September 16, 2004. Fund for Animals. Staff writer.

A blistering op/ed column this week in the Minneapolis Star Tribune paints a vivid picture of how hunters and state wildlife agencies damage their own credibility by rolling back longstanding protections for mourning doves and using bogus justifications for shooting these gentle and inoffensive birds. Establishing a target shooting season on the much-loved mourning doves in Minnesota, after six decades of protection, validates the worse stereotypes of hunters. Environmental consultant Richard Currie Smith argues that Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) does no service to hunters by trying to justify the dove hunt with rickety biblical references that the mourning dove is not "technically" a songbird or spurious claims that the doves are overpopulated. Further damaging to the DNR's reputation is the fact that dove hunters will pump enormous amounts of lead shot into the very ecosystem the agency is supposed to be preserving.

In Michigan, the story is much the same. The legislature, and Governor Jennifer Granholm, approved a mourning dove hunting season, overturning a 99-year history of protecting doves as songbirds. The Michigan DNR also makes false arguments that doves are overpopulated and blatantly states that mourning doves should be a game species because their slow speed and size make them excellent target practice to encourage children and young adults to take up hunting. The role of the DNR should not be to serve as the marketing arm of hunters; if the "sport" is in decline, it is because the vast majority of citizens prefer non-lethal forms of outdoor recreation. To redress the DNR's and Governor Granholm's astonishingly poor judgment, the Committee to Restore the Dove Shooting Ban is leading an all-volunteer signature gathering effort to put the question of mourning dove protection to Michigan voters in 2006. Response to the campaign has been very enthusiastic and hundreds of volunteer signature gatherers are now hitting the streets.