Media Coverage - Eric Sharp: Logic vs. Emotion? Emotion Wins, 2-1
Published November 8, 2006. By Eric Sharp. Outdoor Writer. Detroit Free Press
Voters shot down a proposal to allow dove hunting in Michigan by a 2-1 margin Tuesday, proving that in a political campaign between logic and emotion, emotion wins every time.
A very effective campaign against Proposal 3 was engineered by the Humane Society of the United States, a Washington-based animal rights group. But proponents couldn't even convince many Michigan deer, duck, pheasant, turkey and bear hunters that mourning doves should be game birds.
Jody Hansen, an e-mailer who identified himself as a Michigan hunter but didn't say where he was from, wrote that he often disagrees with the Humane Society, but he voted against the dove hunt.
"There's no meat on them, and they're so tame it would be like shooting fish in a barrel," he wrote.
Proponents of the dove hunt managed to pare the margin, which was running 3-1 against them early in the campaign, but they were unable to overcome waves of sentiment that said doves were songbirds and the symbol of peace, even though they are hunted in 39 other states.
Voters also overwhelmingly approved Proposal 1, which prevents politicians from misappropriating the money we pay for fishing and hunting licenses, boating and snowmobile registrations, state park entry and camping fees and taxes on fishing and hunting gear.
Many outdoors people apparently remembered former Gov. John Engler taking $7.8 million of their dedicated funds to balance the state budget, along with some unsuccessful attempts by the Legislature to grab those funds for other purposes.
Proposal 1 ensures that money collected from outdoors people for such purposes can't be used for anything else.
