Media Coverage - HUGH McDIARMID: Should Michigan Allow Dove Hunting? NO
October 26, 2006. By Hugh McDiarmid. Detroit Freepress
Gun crowd should aim for honesty in crusade to shoot songbirds
What continued nonsense! As widely predicted, the gun nuts and their pals are going bonkers these days over the prospect that, once again, Michigan may turn its back on slaughtering mourning doves for fun and entertainment ... or, if you're gullible enough to believe the handful who insist it's true, also for food.
The worst of it comes from National Rifle Association types and their pals in the Michigan United Conservation Clubs who shout about how banning the dove hunt is only the beginning and, hey, if the do-gooders succeed in that, they will immediately go for bigger game such as ducks, pheasants, elk, deer -- you name it -- until they reach their major goals, which are to ban hunting, trapping and, yes, even fishing in Michigan and ... and ... maybe even TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS!
Harrumph!, they say. The ban on dove hunting, if successful, would be only "the tip of the iceberg" (MUCC's wordage). Oh?
Weirdly, the same crowd is making a related, though specious, pitch about how slaughtering mourning doves, because there are so many of them even though they harm nothing, is -- get this -- "good conservation." In fact, the oxymoronic name for the pro-dove-hunt campaign these days is "Citizens for Wildlife Conservation."
Groan.
The noise, of course, is all triggered by Proposal 06-3 on the Nov. 7 ballot, which puts before voters the Legislature's 2004 decision to do away with Michigan's nearly 100-year-old ban on hunting mourning doves.
The ballot issue results from a successful petition drive sponsored or endorsed by all sorts of legitimate do-gooder groups, including the Michigan Audubon Society, the Michigan State Grange, the Michigan Humane Society, the Humane Society of the United States, the Songbird Protection Coalition, and on and on.
To be sure, some individuals in the sponsoring group -- the Committee to Keep Doves Protected --may be anti-hunting or antigun or both. But the committee's stated position is that it seeks to change no law involving Michigan's traditional hunting practices. And most individual members, even if they dream of bigger things down the line, aren't fools. And they don't believe Michigan is ready to turn its back on long popular outdoor traditions of hunting (including 40 or so species of birds other than doves), fishing and, yes, even gun rights.
But that's not what Proposal 06-3 is about. It's about doves -- only doves -- and whether Michigan returns to its long-standing position that doves are harmless, peaceful songbirds, not game birds.
Yes, some 40 other states allow the dove hunt -- and, yes, lots of "Michigan" doves are legally shot (or shot at) in surrounding states. But so what? This is about doves in Michigan -- only in Michigan.
The gun lobby also blabs away with lots of other nonsensical laments, too. For example -- led by the MUCC -- it argues that the dove hunt will cost 'em millions of dollars to defend on the ballot -- money that otherwise would be used for pro-conservation and pro-environment causes. Oh? Who, pray tell, is making the MUCC, etc., spend money on such a campaign? Huh? Huh? The answer: gun nuts.
Also, the lobby talks out of both sides of its mouth on the advantages of hunting doves. On one side, it says that because doves are so plentiful, all sorts of kids, housewives, old folks, disabled people, etc., will be able to shoot 'em from close-in neighborhoods and backyards -- spreading the joy. On the other side, it insists that doves, though plentiful, are acrobatic in flight and, thus, such difficult targets that lots of dove bags will end up empty (although backyards may be littered with lead). So? So what?
Also, there's blabber about how the dove hunt will add "millions" of dollars to Michigan's economy from tourism and new jobs, etc. -- a claim that, as the dove protection committee has spelled out at length, is wholly without merit.
And so on. The only legitimate issue is, simply, whether Michigan wants to vote "yes" and, thus, endorse the Legislature's misguided, gun-driven move to overturn this state's longstanding (99 years until 2004) position that mourning doves are harmless songbirds that deserve protection ... or whether it wants to vote "no," thus doing away with the new law that turns doves into shotgun-targeted game birds.
Finally, to those nut cakes who claim Proposal 06-3 is just the "tip of the iceberg" and that, in the end, what's really at stake is a ban on all hunting, trapping, fishing and maybe even guns ... well, why not ask THEM what's next on their "conservation" agenda: slaughtering sparrows? Robins? Swans? Blue herons? Maybe even adding backyard bird feeders to the game list. Hmmm. Those bird feeders are plentiful and not very acrobatic, so they sure would make easy targets, eh? Why, you might even nail a mourning dove or two -- accidentally, of course -- while they're sitting there feeding and going "coo, coo."
