Media Coverage - Future of Mourning Doves to be Decided
Published October 11, 2006. By .Kurt Hauglie. Daily Mining Gazette
Proposition 06-3 on the Nov. 7 general election ballot will give voters the opportunity to decide if the hunting season for mourning doves should be kept in Michigan or if the 100-year-old ban on hunting the birds should be reinstated.
LANSING — Julie Baker doesn’t understand why anyone would want to hunt mourning doves, but she does know that the effort to establish a hunting season for the birds in Michigan has failed many times.
“This issue has been a hot-button issue for 28 years,” Baker said.
Baker, who is director of the Committee to Keep Doves Protected, which is based near Lansing, said the group formed in August 2004, and it has 1,000 endorsements from many church groups, businesses and organizations, such as the Michigan Audubon Society, the Michigan Humane Society and agricultural organization the Michigan Grange.
Voters will be asked to vote yes or no to establish a hunting season for mourning doves in Michigan. According to Ken Silfven, spokesman for the office of Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Proposal 3 on the Nov. 7 general election ballot is a referendum on the legislation passed in 2003 and signed into law by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2004 that allowed hunting of the birds and required the Natural Resources Commission to establish a hunting season.
Groups against the hunting of mourning doves immediately sought the referendum as a way of delaying the season until the electorate could voice their opinion on the issue.
Baker said the Committee to Keep Doves Protected circulated a petition for the referendum between September 2005 and this March, and 275,000 signatures were submitted to the Board of State Canvassers. Silfven said 158,879 verified signatures were needed to get the referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Many hunters are against Proposal 3, also, Baker said.
“The majority of hunters are against this because it’s bad for their image,” she said.
In 1998, Baker said the legislature approved a bill making the mourning dove the official state bird of peace.
Baker said there are 4 million mourning doves in Michigan, but their numbers aren’t a problem.
“Doves are not overpopulated,” she said.
Mourning doves eat seeds, Baker said, including weed seeds, which is part of the reason the Michigan Grange is supporting reinstating the 100-year-old ban on hunting.
“They’re not dangerous to people, and they do not damage property or crops,” she said. “Actually, they’re known as the farmer’s friend.”
Baker said in her opinion, the only purpose for hunting mourning doves is for target practice.
“There’s no good reason to shoot doves,” she said.
Donna Stein, deputy director for policy at the Michigan United Conservation Clubs in Lansing, disagrees with that statement.
In the states where mourning doves are hunted, they’re very popular as a prey species, and Stein said the referendum is not really about the birds.
“We believe it’s not about protecting doves,” she said. “It’s about prohibiting hunting.”
Stein said the referendum effort in Michigan has received a large portion of funding from the Humane Society of the United States, which Stein said is opposed to hunting in general.
Mourning doves are not endangered, Stein said, and the females lay two eggs in two nests during each mating season.
“They’re very prolific,” she said.
In Michigan, Stein said the Department of Natural Resources biologists will determine how many should be hunted.
“The more responsible thing is to allow for sound scientific management of doves, which currently occurs for all our game species,” she said.
Stein said she also disputes Baker’s claim that a majority of hunters support reinstating the ban on mourning dove hunting.
“We haven’t seen any evidence,” she said. “There haven’t been any public polls released that say that.”
Stein said according to the DNR Web site, less than 10 percent of the population of doves are taken by hunting. The birds are ground feeders and easy targets for predators.
“Seventy percent of all doves will die in less than a year,” she said.
Rob Aho, wildlife biologist with DNR Baraga district headquarters, said about 400 million mourning doves migrate across the continental United States each year, and about 4 million migrate through Michigan.
The populations of doves are greater in the Lower Peninsula south of a line from Bay City in the east and Ludington in the west, Aho said.
To determine bird numbers, Aho said DNR employees drive set routes to listen for dove calls. In the Upper Peninsula, the greatest numbers of the birds are in Delta and Menominee counties.
Aho said 40 states allow hunting of mourning doves and 22.7 million are harvested annually.
“It’s the most popular game bird in the United States,” he said.
Also said more information about mourning doves can be found at the DNR Web site, www.michigan.gov/dnr. Click on the Wildlife and Wildlife Habitat link.
