Media Coverage - 'Dave' takes aim

Published October 22, 2006. By Elizabeth Shaw. The Flint Journal

GENESEE COUNTY - The campaign war chests have opened wide as Election Day draws near. And out pops ...

Dave the Dove?

The hapless cartoon character (you can check him out at www.stopshootingdoves.org/dave.html) is one of the more colorful stars of an 11th-hour advertising blitz surrounding Proposal 3, the mourning dove hunting question.

The proposal asks residents to vote "Yes" if the state should allow mourning doves to be hunted as a managed game bird, or to vote "No" if the state should ban the hunting of mourning doves as a protected songbird.

In his Internet cartoon spot for The Committee To Keep Doves Protected, a worried Dave waves a peace sign while a hungry diner peers through a magnifying glass at a toothpicked dove tidbit on his plate.

Then Dave shows his online audience he's neither nuisance nor traffic risk. It's all for naught, of course: A rifle scope zeroes in on poor Dave hiding out at a backyard bird feeder. A few seconds later, Dave's sign is full of holes.

There's plenty more where Dave came from, with a round-the-clock slew of TV, radio and Internet commercials urging Michigan residents to vote "No" on Proposal 3.

"I'm gratified by the tremendous statewide grassroots support we've received to allow us to continue our advertising campaign," Committee director Julie Baker said in announcing the new wave of media hype.

"Grassroots" might be a misnomer. More than a half-million dollars - or roughly 66 percent - of the committee's approximate $806,000 in contributions came from the Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C.

But some voters say too much "shock and awe" could backfire.

"The funny thing is, the more this issue is debated and discussed, the more I want to try dove hunting. I really didn't care about it last year," said Blaine Pertler of Flushing. "This campaign like many others is aimed at children and your emotions. ... (It could) rile me up to vote, but not rile me up to extreme anger."

Not all the ads are comical. A frequently aired TV spot shows the graphic image of a wounded dove flailing on the ground, while a woman's voice gently intones the pro-ban litany: Doves aren't overpopulated, aren't harmful, are too small for food and are only shot for live target practice.

"I think maybe it'll have an impact on people that haven't made up their minds. Even some of your big hunting supporters have admitted seeing a wounded dove has an emotional impact," said ban supporter Howard Schultz of Mundy Township. "They accuse us of being too emotional. But I think hunters themselves are coming at this issue from an emotional perspective.

"That emotion is just as strong within them as our emotion within us to let the doves live."

Pertler thinks undecided voters could be persuaded if they understood that dove hunting revenues benefit other species and wildlife habitat in general. Each $2 dove stamp is split evenly between the Game and Fish Protection Fund and the Nongame Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund.

Meanwhile, the pro-hunting Citizens for Wildlife Conservation says it's spending $1 to every $5 spent by its opponents, with about 10 days of radio and some TV time planned as Nov. 7 draws near.

The group reported just over $57,000 in contributions, mostly from in-state sources. The National Rifle Association contributed $15,000, or about 26 percent.

That doesn't mean hunt supporters are lacking manpower or motivation: "Yes" vote supporters recently planted 40,000 yard signs in a single day around the state.

"We're running a fact-based campaign, while theirs is based on emotional rhetoric and lies," said CWC treasurer Jim Shaeffer. "They're telling people these birds are going to be shot off bird feeders or used for target practice and left strewn in a field."

Both actions would be unethical and illegal, he said.

"There's still a chance to sway opinion on this, especially when there's so many lies being told on the other side."

Still, local Safari Club International president Marc Somers admits he's worried by Dave the Dove's deep pockets.

"Politics is a nasty business of misinformation and misrepresentation, and the bigger campaign chests always win over common sense," said Somers.

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