News

Off the Record: Hunt Doves?

Published September 1, 2003. Gaylord Herald Times. By Jim Grisso, Publisher
Off the Record: Hunt doves?

The Michigan dove hunting issue is taking flight again. Fire-ready-aim.

State Rep. Sue Tabor, R-Delta Township, has introduced a bill that would make mourning doves fair game in Michigan. A similar bill to legalize dove hunting was defeated a couple years ago.

Have you ever seen one of these birds? They're not very big.

If you sit down to a meal of doves, you better not be hungry. They look good size, but, personally, I never cared much for feathers as my main entree. That's about all you get per bird - a flock of feathers.

Eric Sharp, Detroit Free Press outdoor writer and proponent of dove hunting, says you don't eat them like chicken, unless you like the size of McDonald's Mcnuggets. He says what you do is eat three or four doves at one sitting. Like eating shrimp, oysters or blue gills, says Sharp.

Sharp says not to worry about extinction brought about by human consumption. He claims hawks are the real problem. They eat lots of doves, leaving all those tasty feathers to go to waste.

Admittedly, I am not a hunter, and I happen to feed these gentle birds on a regular basis at home.

But Sharp pointed out a banding program in Ohio showed that fewer than 1 percent of the doves killed by hunters in the field were birds that hung out in people's back yards.

Quoting Tabor in a recent Sharp column in the Freep: "I hear people say, 'I'm a deer hunter. I don't want to hunt doves,' and I wonder what's wrong with them. This isn't about doves. It's about hunting, and if you claim to be a hunter, you should understand that." Huh? What kind of birdbrained statement is that?

In other words, the pro-dove shooters are hunting for moral support from hunters who could give a chirp about doves. That's what happened two years ago when legislation was defeated for lack of interest. So why bother now? How many people are really interested in hunting doves?

One group supporting the fire-ready-aim program is the U.S. Sportsmen's alliance. Its vice president says the effort to scuttle the Michigan bill is led by the Humane Society, which opposes all forms of hunting.

He said Tabor's bill will be a top priority for his group to educate the uneducated hunters and uneducated media. He further stated once dove season opens, dove hunters in Michigan will outnumber turkey hunters. Who cares?

And what's education got to do with anything? Don't put me in that category. I don't belong to the Humane Society, do not oppose all forms of hunting, and I don't consider myself uneducated media.

The bull's-eye of this story is dove hunting should not be considered a sport.

Those doves darn near come up and eat out of your hand.

Opponents of the proposed legislation call it a blatant attempt to authorize a target shooting season on mourning doves. Right on target, folks. Doves have been protected in Michigan since 1905.

But the sportsmen's alliance guy even went so far as to say Michigan's hunters are second-class citizens because their brethren in Ohio and Indiana have the honor and privilege of bringing down doves (or shooting them at the bird feeder) with one pull of the trigger. Why doesn't this "sportsman" go back to his nest and lay another egg.

I think what you've got here is a small flock of pro-dove destroyers flying over their own cuckoo's nest.

Fire-ready-aim.

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