Media Coverage - Compromise to Mourning Dove Issue
Published October 26, 2006. By Andy Heller. Daily Mining Gazette
FLINT — The problem with hunters is that they’re just not up front about their hobby.
Basically, they like shooting stuff.
Hey, I get that. I liked shooting stuff when I had guns as a boy. I particularly liked plinking cans or blasting clay pigeons.
When it came to shooting things that bled, though, it just wasn’t my thing.
That’s not the case for many gun enthusiasts. For them, blasting inanimate objects pales in comparison to blasting animated ones, i.e. objects that don’t necessarily want to be shot.
I’m all right with that, too, to be honest.
I eat meat. We do have a hunting heritage in this country. And in Michigan particularly, we have way too many deer.
So while it’s not my cup of tea, I can hardly complain about others who enjoy hunting.
What annoys me, though, is that many hunters never cop to the real reason they enjoy it.
Instead of saying they’re going out in the woods to blow a hole in some woodland creature for the sheer bloodlust rush of doing so, they yammer on about how, especially in the case of deer, they’re “harvesting” the poor things so they don’t starve to death during the winter. (Me, if I were a deer and had to choose, I’d take my chances with the starving, thank you very much. I could pretend it was a diet.)
They’re doing it again — or not doing it again, I suppose — with mourning doves.
Mourning doves, in case you weren’t aware, are on the ballot Nov. 7. Proposal 3 will ask voters whether they want to establish a dove hunting season in Michigan.
Dove lovers are, naturally, outraged. They argue that doves are the international symbol of peace, and that many hunters simply want to use them as target practice rather than for food.
Hunters, just as naturally, are outraged about the outrage, saying they do so want to eat the doves, and besides mourning doves are wily, difficult to shoot adversaries.
That’s where they start to lose me.
Wily? Difficult to kill? I’ve had mourning doves sit on my driveway behind my car. I have to get out and shoo them away so I don’t squish them.
I’ve watched a mourning dove sit on my kids’ wooden swing set while a cat — in full view of the dove — climbed to within 3 feet before the dove finally figured, “Hey, I think that thing wants to eat me.”
In a news article I just read, a hunter described doves as fast and elusive, which seems like a bit of an exaggeration. I suspect they’re only fast and elusive when someone’s shooting at them. I know I would be.
Besides, I don’t think hunters want to hunt doves because they’re such an incredible challenge. I suspect they merely want something else to shoot.
If so, I have the perfect candidate: the seagull.
I’d be for that. A seagull dive bombed me once while I sunbathed. The dropping hit me on the back of the leg. I’m still mad about it.
It seems like a good compromise.
Gulls seem at least as smart and wily as mourning doves.
Plus, I’ve never thought we have too many doves, but I do think we have too many seagulls. They’re loud, messy, ill-tempered creatures.
Why not hunt them? Think of the convenience. Hunters wouldn’t even have to leave town. They could set up blinds in grocery store parking lots.
Another benefit: Seagulls appear to be far meatier than your average mourning dove.
That’s another issue in the dove debate, by the way. Dove lovers say there’s so little meat on a dove it’s not worth shooting.
I suspect that’s true. If it weren’t you can be sure my kids would be pestering me to take them to Kentucky Fried Mourning Dove for a three-strip meal.
But they don’t, and since corporate America never has met an animal it didn’t want to deep fry for profit, I’ll assume they know what they’re talking about.
The only problem with seagulls in the meat department is that they don’t look like they’d taste that good. (A mixture of bad chicken and rancid french fries is what I’d guess.)
I doubt that would matter, though. I think, given the chance, hunters would hunt them anyway.
They just wouldn’t have to pretend that it was the meat or the challenge they were ultimately after, after all.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Andy Heller, an award-winning writer for the Flint Journal, writes a weekly column which appears on Thursdays in the Daily Press. He was raised in Escanaba and graduated from Escanaba High School in 1979. A new collection of Heller’s columns, entitled “Come Heller High Water 2,” is available at Canterbury Book Store in downtown Escanaba.
