Media Coverage - Anti-dove Hunting Ads Hit TV
Published October 10, 2006. By Sharon Emery. Booth Newspapers.
LANSING -- Backers of a group trying to convince Michigan voters to outlaw dove hunting are using a woman's voice and close-ups of the diminutive bird in their new statewide TV campaign.
Launched Monday, the ads are airing in every TV market in the state, according to Steve Serkaian, who produced the spot for the Committee to Keep Doves Protected (www.stopshootingdoves.org). He declined to say how much the ads cost, but said they would likely be airing through Election Day. Radio ads have been up for two weeks.
The TV ads feature a woman narrator speaking off-camera as the screen shows first a collage of portraits assembled into the shape of Michigan and then a close-up of a dove.
"Thousands of people from all walks of life want to keep Michigan's 100-year tradition of protecting mourning doves," the narrator says. "Why? Because there is no good reason to shoot doves. They're not overpopulated. They're not harmful to people or property. And doves are so small they're not shot for food."
Groups behind the ad include the Michigan Humane Society, as well as hundreds of local humane societies, and student, religious and civic groups. They are urging a no vote on Proposal 3, which asks voters if they want the state to establish a hunting season for mourning doves.
The results of a Detroit Free Press poll released Sept. 4 showed 50 percent would vote no, 40 percent yes. The poll of 803 likely voters, conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
With Michigan's long-standing ban on dove hunting, "the citizens have made it clear that they don't want the shooting of mourning doves," said Julie Baker, director of the Lansing-based Committee to Keep Doves Protected.
But the charge that doves would be used merely for target practice -- not for food -- is a particular affront to Citizens for Wildlife Conservation (www.cwcmi.org), which represents several outdoor sporting groups and is urging a yes vote. They say 40 other states allow dove hunting and that there is no good reason not to hunt them here.
Taking potshots at doves is illegal and disdained by hunters, said Tony Hansen, spokesman for the Michigan United Conservation Clubs.
"Those are lawbreakers, they are absolutely shunned by the hunting community," Hansen said. "They (hunting opponents) are trying to trick people into thinking this is normal, accepted practice. It's not."
More than 4 million mourning doves migrate here each year, largely to southern Michigan, he said. If a season were established, perhaps 10,000 hunters might kill fewer than 100,000 birds.
"The science is absolutely clear: Hunting will not reduce the crop or reduce backyard sitings," Hansen said. Dove hunting opponents "are letting emotional rhetoric stand in the way of science."
The TV ad also says that "out-of-state extremists" are pushing "cruel and unnecessary" dove hunting.
Citizens for Wildlife Conservation, based in Lansing, includes the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International and the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, as well as MUCC, the Michigan Bear Hunters Association, the Michigan Hunting Dog Federation and the Michigan Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
But the hunters insist that the Humane Society of the United States, which is urging a no vote, is an even bigger out-of-state influence. The hunters group hopes to have ads up two weeks before the election.
The state's longtime ban on dove hunting was lifted by the Legislature in 2004. The Natural Resources Commission then set up a three-year trial hunt in Berrien, Branch, Cass, Hillsdale, Lenawee and St. Joseph counties to study the impact before deciding whether to expand the hunt.
Some 3,000 hunters killed more than 28,000 doves in the fall of 2004. But by then opponents had collected enough signatures to put the issue on this year's Nov. 7 ballot, and the trial hunt was suspended.