Michigan State Rep. Susan Tabor (R) recently introduced a bill in the Michigan tate House that would remove the mourning dove from the state’s list of protected bird species, thereby allowing hunting of the mourning dove in Michigan.
Mourning dove hunting is currently legal in 39 states, including three that border Michigan — Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.
Tabor was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying that the goal of the bill,
. . . is to convince hunters that we need to stand together on this one. 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.
Animal rights activists are gearing up to oppose the move. According to the Humane Society of the United States, for example, hunting mourning doves is wrong because, among other things,
Mourning doves are small birds, yielding very little meat. Hence, dove hunting amounts to nothing more than target practice for hunters.
To which Detroit Free Press outdoors columnist Eric Sharp retorts,
I guess you’ve never heard of shrimp, oysters and bluegills. Doves are smaller than chickens, so you eat three or four instead of half of one, just as we usually eat a half-dozen or more perch compared to a single walleye fillet. And eating doves does nothing to hurt the survival of the species. If you really want to save doves, come up with a way to stop hawks from eating them.
The full text of the legislation introduced by Rep. Tabor can be read here.
Sources:
Michigan: Preserve the Ban on Dove Hunting. Press Release, Humane Society of the United States, Press Release, Undated.
Dove hunting deserves a shot. Eric Sharp, Detroit Free Press, August 21, 2003.
Help Defeat Michigan Dove Hunting Legislation. Press Release, Animal Protection Institute, August 26, 2003.