There will be a very important "life-or-death" vote
taken throughout Wisconsin at 7 p.m., April 10, at the DNR Spring
Fish and Wildlife Rules Hearings. The issue to be voted upon
will be: "Do you support establishing a mourning dove
hunting season in Wisconsin?" With a simple "X"
after either yes or no, it will be decided whether or not tens or
hundreds of thousands of mourning doves will be shot in the state
each September and October hereafter.
What may come as a surprise is the fact that Senate Bill 422
was signed into law on November 10, 1971 stating in effect that
the mourning dove shall be known as Wisconsin’s official symbol
of peace and deleted from the official definition of game birds.
Undoubtedly that new bill was welcomed by hundreds of thousands
of Wisconsinites who were very fond of this harmless sleek bird.
As I lay in bed this morning, well before dawn, thinking about
the upcoming "life-or-death" vote, I recalled one of my
favorite tongue-in-cheek sayings, "Support the right to arm
bears," and began thinking of this whole issue from an
entirely different angle.
Imagine for a moment that suddenly all game animals had the
ability to bear arms, to "shoot back." All would be
eligible to attend a conservation meeting for voting on important
issues that affected their well-being and livelihood. On the
night of the statewide meeting it was unanimously decided by the
animals to concentrate on killing as many white Homo sapiens, for
example, as possible, because they had been found to be the
greatest detriment to the continued survival of wildlife in
general.
Surely it’s a far-fetched idea, but I can’t get it out of my
mind that with the flick of a pencil the fate of thousands of
native animals will be decided. We are being told that mourning
doves are the most widely distributed and abundant game
bird in North America, with the current fall migration
estimate at 400+ million. (OOPS, this doesn’t include Wisconsin
where they have been legally declared to be an official symbol of
peace and not a game bird!).
Some of the arguments in favor of hunting the doves are that
there are plenty of them to go around and they will provide
additional hunting opportunities. I know there are some people,
myself not included, who may say, "Do you hunters want
something to shoot at? Consider double-crested cormorants,
common grackles, European starlings, house sparrows and
brown-headed cowbirds? The supply is very plentiful!"
I have heard that proponents of hunting mourning doves claim
there are 15 million doves in Wisconsin by September. This would
amount to 268 per every square mile in the state, and
that’s a lot! Somebody had better check their figures.
It has been irrefutably proven that the mourning dove is an
excellent natural, nontoxic, nonpolluting "herbicide"
in that, when residing in the country its diet consists of tons
of weed seeds along with much waste grain that has fallen to the
ground as a result of mechanical harvesting.
Today there is a strong block of Upper Midwestern and
Northeastern states that do not allow hunting of mourning doves.
They are Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont,
New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The remainder of the states
allow hunting of our official symbol of peace. In fact more of
these swift birds are shot and killed in the U.S. than any other
form of wildlife.
On a number of occasions in the past I have seen mourning
doves still nesting well into September. Proponents of hunting
them propose to begin the season in early September. Can you
fathom killing parent birds while they are still raising young?
Neither can I! By the way, it has been estimated that nesting
success of mourning doves is less than 50% in our state.
Keep in mind that mourning doves nest widely in all states and
that their behavior in the northern states is much different than
that in the southern states. Here the mourning doves visit many
people’s feeders. It is common for them to flock by the hundreds
in fields of waste grain in southern states. My strong
contention is that hunters in Wisconsin don’t have to hunt them
simply because they are already being hunted in so many of the
southern and western states.
Where do I stand on the issue? I belong to the estimated 90%
of the members of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology strongly
opposed to hunting mourning doves. We urge you to attend your
county meeting, April 10 at 7 p.m., of the DNR Spring Fish and
Wildlife Rules Hearings to vote on this vital topic. You do not
have to testify in order to vote on this issue which will be the
second question on the agenda.
Please vote and help allow the mourning dove to live in peace
in Wisconsin!
Mourning dove, Wisconsin's official symbol of peace
Also see:
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 03/24/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
