News

Wayne Pacelle:
Good Reasons to Keep State Dove Hunt Ban

Published June 11, 2004. By Wayne Pacelle. Detroit Free Press.
WAYNE PACELLE: Good reasons to keep state dove hunting ban

For 99 years, the State of Michigan has banned the target shooting of mourning doves -- gentle and inoffensive birds that cause harm to no one. Each year, sure as shooting, the National Rifle Association and the Michigan United Conservation Clubs have attempted to overturn the ban.

This year, the NRA and the MUCC succeeded in ramming a dove hunting bill through the Legislature. But they faced an obstacle in Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who had promised during her 2002 election campaign to veto any dove hunting bill. Earlier this year, Granholm backtracked slightly, declaring that she would sign the bill only if it contained a provision to allow the public to vote on the subject.

Subsequently, the MUCC hatched a plan that the group described as a "compromise" -- to allow a dove hunting season in portions of southern Michigan. The hunt would be evaluated after three years by the Natural Resources Committee, a group made up primarily of hunters who are all but certain to give the green light to continued target-shooting of doves.

The MUCC is free to label its dove hunting plan a compromise, but no objective observer should be the least bit confused about this false nomenclature. The MUCC is embarking on a two-step plan, with both steps calling for dove hunting. The first step allows dove hunting in southern Michigan, and the second step would allow for dove hunting throughout the state.

Astonishingly, Granholm has signaled she is considering the proposal, even though there are no new facts or information that have come to light to prompt a change in her original position, which was the right one.

If hunters want to set their sights on a particular species, they often argue that the animals are a pest: deer overpopulate, raccoons spread rabies, gophers dig up crops, and so on. The task of killing is thus made to seem like a public service.

But it's difficult to demonize the gentle dove. Their quiet coo is welcomed in our backyards, and they are widely regarded as symbols of peace. Doves don't overpopulate; they regulate their own numbers without any help from us and have done so in Michigan for nearly a century. They don't destroy crops; they are ground-feeding birds that help farmers by eating weed seeds. They don't eat ornamental shrubs. They don't carry or spread avian influenza, monkey pox, chronic wasting disease, or any other infectious scourge. They don't tip over trash cans or even leave droppings on golf courses.

Protecting Michigan's doves still leaves hunters with the opportunity to kill a wide variety of other birds -- more than 40 species in all. There are, of course, many sizes and species of geese and ducks. There are the upland birds such as pheasant, partridge and grouse. Then there are turkeys and a flock of others from coots and other rails to snipe and woodcock. It's enough avian diversity to keep any bird hunter busy and both barrels ablaze.

Then there's the matter of needless suffering. Data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveal a wounding rate in excess of 25 percent, which means that one in every four birds shot is not retrieved.

And dove shooting also translates into the discharge of mounds of lead shot, which pollutes our environment and poisons other wildlife. The lead shot that hunters discharge on one day far outweighs the mass of the birds they kill.

Michigan voters oppose dove hunting, and every statewide survey of the electorate supports that fact. Gov. Granholm has no reason to give in to the gun lobby. Compromise is one thing; capitulation is another.

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