Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Targeting Wisconsin's State Bird of Peace, finally It looks like Wisconsin's on-again, off-again dove hunt is on again, this time for good.  Yesterday, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Department of Natural resources has the authority to establish a mourning dove hunt.  That means that come September, Wisconsin hunters will again have the opportunity to hunt America's most popular and most abundant game bird. The dove hunt issue has a long history here,  To read more about it, go to widovehunt.com.  In a nutshell, doves are hunted in 38 other states, most of them in the South, but some northern states as well.  Efforts to establish a dove hunt here have met with considerable opposition.  The State Legislature even named the mourning dove the "state bird of peace" back in 1971.  The most recent effort on behalf of dove hunters began a few years ago with the formation of the Wisconsin Dove Hunters Association.  A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story summarizes the events leading up to yesterday's decision. WDHA president Rob Kieckhefer called the court's decision "a victory for people who hunt and fish, for people who love the outdoors."  On the other side of the issue, John Wieneke, himself a deer hunter, but a founder of the group that opposed dove hunting, fears that this decision will lead to a hunting season on other "birds at the backyard feeder." The issue has been decided, but perhaps not put to rest, at least in the minds of non-hunting birders and others who have not experienced dove hunting first hand.  For those who fear robins and chickadees will be next in line to be hunted, it ain't gonna happen.  Doves are different.  They hang out at feeders, true, but unlike other feeder birds, they offer a sporting challenge when they fly from grain fields to water holes, far from your backyard and mine.  The question of how many doves pass through or reside in Wisconsin is of interest, but it is irrelevant to the hunt issue.  Whether there are a million or ten million doves, hunters will take only a small percentage of the total.  Annual mortality on doves is high, regardless of hunting pressure.  If the Feds feel we are taking too many doves, the USFWS will move to cut back the harvest.  Count on it. As with many other activities humans pursue, if you have never played this game, you are likely to wonder what's the big deal.  In the South, dove hunting is a tradition of long standing.  A representative of a major ammunition maker once said that there are more shotgun shells fired at doves on September 1 (the traditional opening day) than are fired at all the clay-target ranges in America in an entire year.  That's a lot of ammo!  Dove shoots across the country are social events that frequently end with a meal of dove, often simply prepared on an outdoor grill.  A southerner who came to Milwaukee for Harley Davidson's 100th last Labor Day Weekend told his host that he was missing his first dove opener in 30 years.  He didn't have to, I suggested, since Wisconsin did have a season last year. Dove hunting is popular for a variety of reasons.  It's the first hunt of the fall, birds are abundant and the shooting is a real challenge.  Anyone who has only watched doves at a feeder or perched on a wire has no clue.  They fly fast, change speed and angle quickly and can come at you from any direction, making them as tough to hit with a shotgun as any target, feathered or clay.  Anyone who can consistently bag a limit (12 or 15 in most states) with a box of shells (25) is a shooter of considerable skill. A dove hunt is a great opportunity for young hunters to sharpen their shooting and learn hunting ethics and etiquette in the company of more experienced hunters.  As Wisconsin hunters grow into dove hunting, they will slowly learn what folks in states like Texas, Arizona and Illinois find so compelling about the sport. Wieneke and other opponents scoff at the idea of eating doves, saying there isn't enough meat on one to warrant killing it.  In fact, four doves make a decent meal and no game bird has a more delicate flavor.  On a hunt last fall in Waukesha County, host Steve Williams grilled a bunch of doves his group had taken earlier in the season.  They tasted so good, everyone wished they had missed fewer shots so they could enjoy a couple more meals before the end of the season.  You can see for yourself what dove hunting is all about when we air the segment we taped that day on Outdoor Wisconsin sometime this summer. If you hit the sporting clays courses this summer, ask the course managers to crank the traps up a notch or two and use mini targets instead of standard-size clays.  You'll need all the practice you can get come September. For more information on dove hunting, log onto the Wisconsin DNR website.  If I can find a copy of the article I wrote for Wisconsin Outdoor News three years ago, when we first thought we'd have a dove season, I'll post it on the "Stories" page of my weblog. Later... 10:31:16 PM    comment []