Your Senate members are trying to Ban Dove hunting

[camdu7]

The Natural resources and environmental committee is meeting monday to discuss SF2329. What would ban Dove hunting in MN. The authours are Dibble; Pappas; Doll; Marty; Anderson, all are from the Cities. So if they are your Senators give tham a call or if your Senator is on the committee contact them.

Here is a link to the bill

https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/revi...29&ssn=0&y=2008

[yocal_local]

do any of you guys dove hunt?? its fun and i would not want to see it go away. thats just stupid if they do!!!

[Mark Christianson]

And I wonder what the compelling reason is behind this action???

Its starts with doves and if they are successful, then whats next. ???

Not good.

[Wanderer]

Ha! I figured this would come up some time!

Before last season opened, there was a thread about dove hunting and some anti dove hunters chimed in. One of them (not mentioning names) said everybody should enjoy the '07 season, since it would likely be the last.

Shortly after that, in The North American Hunter, they flagged this bill as the beginning of the end of MN's dove hunting. I didn't read your link, but I remember they were talking about relisting the dove as a song bird instead of a game bird, thus making them illegal to shoot.

If you want to see this season stick around, make some calls!

[frogtosser]

why did they even bring back dove hunting if they just want to ban it again. thats just dumb. I dont dove hunt but like biglakebass says whats next.

[koonie]

If you find a good dove field or watering hole with a lot of doves working the area you will have more fun wingshooting them than you have ever had hunting anything else. Simply a blast. Challenging and humbling. We can't let this [PoorWordUsage] happen! This is one of the best ways to introduce a kid to hunting. It's fun, fast paced, and the birds taste great. I really hope they don't end our dove season.

[Bandit]

What koonie said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Write-Outdoor]

Dove hunting has been a huge success in Minnesota even though it's a tough hunt. The point is that it's early in the year and a great time to introduce kids and people who aren't fans of the cold to hunting. It's challenging for experienced wingshooters and great practice for waterfowling. Those little birds are quite tasty as well if you get enough of them.

Point being...contact your Legislator today and tell them not to support the ban. Google "Minnesota Legislature" and find them today to let them know.

We fought a looooong time to get this hunt in MN...let's not lose it!

[koonie]

I don't know what word I used in my post that got the axe but I hope I didn't offend anyone. This ban thing has me a little fired up.

[Scott M]

What W.O. said. I tried it the first year it opened and was hooked. Had a great farm field that had been hailed out next to a lake. A couple years later I'm still trying to find a 'field of dreams' like that one.

I'd hate to see it disappear. I believe Minnesota is the land of fishing and hunting opportunities...Why do we want to be in the minority of states that don't allow dove hunting? Survival to age-1 for doves is tiny, hunting isn't taking any birds out of the population that wouldn't die from natural causes anyways. Yes, they pair bond, but so do geese. And yes they are at feeders. So are wood ducks, geese, and deer.

[PierBridge]

 Originally Posted By: Wanderer

Ha! I figured this would come up some time!

Before last season opened, there was a thread about dove hunting and some anti dove hunters chimed in. One of them (not mentioning names) said everybody should enjoy the '07 season, since it would likely be the last.

Here it is 5 pages!

http://www.fishingminnesota.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/1073854/fpart/1

[Neighbor_guy]

If you look at the authors of the bill they are all from the metro area. They claim there constituants want the bill removed that it is just a song bird used as target practice with most being left in the field.

Prove it. The dove hunters I know who have managed to hit them are so proud they let everyone know about it.

[Wanderer]

Thanks Pierbridge,

Just to let those who re-read those pages know, I was having fun. I will be calling though. It takes about as much time as writing a post here.

[koonie]

There was an article in the star trib about banning the dove hunt and the guy(forgot his name) had some lame excuses for getting rid of the dove hunt. He said we don't pick up what we shoot and he has many constituients that are against dove hunting. I personally think he's got three or four friends that brought it up and he's making up excuses. Or maybe it was his wife. One of the dumbest things I've ever read. He also said he didn't think the ban would pass. So why waste time and taxpayer money with some idiotic bill. The reasoning is totally moronic withno factual biological reasoning. It's just one of those I like to hear them sing and see them eat at my feeder things.

[Wanderer]

 Originally Posted By: Wanderer

I will be calling though. It takes about as much time as writing a post here.

It took 5 minutes, start to finish.

[camdu7]

Quick update. The proposal to ban dove hunting was held over to possibly be included in an omnibus bill. I'll keep you updated. Make sure you contact your reps and let them know that this is not supported by the science or the DNR and will be a loss of oppertunities for adults and kids to get outside.

[crazydew]

according to the bill author DFLer Dibble the bill is "A dignified death" and even though the bill is set aside for future consideration doesn't believe it will advance because the House game and fish panel chairman, DFLer, Chaudhary is opposed to the bill.

I find it interesting that Dibble stated that he is not opposed to hunting "in general." ????

[Scott M]

Doves? Where's passion over issues that matter?

By Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune

At the Capitol on Monday in the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, the topic was doves and dove hunting. Among those who favor the former but somehow oppose the latter, facts were few. But the entertainment value they offered was high. So many screwballs with so much time on their hands made for a reality show we could only wish were fiction.

At issue was the fate of Minnesota's newly rekindled dove hunting season. Prohibited for nearly 60 years, dove hunting was again offered to Minnesota hunters four years ago. Troubled citizens who would have legislators believe that doves are now struggling because of this received a hearing Monday.

Carrying a bill for them that would again outlaw dove hunting was Sen. D. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis. The good senator might as well have weighed in on the space shuttle and how to fly it. At least then he could have offered a few original thoughts and not had to parrot the cockamamie drivel foisted so often on an unsuspecting public by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

A digression here. This is not your father's Humane Society, the one you call when Fido goes missing. HSUS is rather more akin to a band of culture warriors, occasionally doing good but fundamentally not quite satisfied with the way things have shaken out here in the good ol' Red, White and Blue, a nation where -- yikes! -- some people actually enjoy themselves.

Last Sunday in this newspaper, Dibble the Parrot was quoted saying that hunters use doves for "target practice'' and that some hunters leave doves they shoot in the field. Monday in the Senate he produced not a scintilla of evidence supporting these assertions. But then neither does HSUS on its website, from which Dibble seems to have plagiarized his thinking on the subject.

You really do wonder what's going on. Mourning doves are by far the most populous game bird in North America. More are killed by hunters each fall than all other migratory game birds combined. This occurs without injury because mourning doves repopulate themselves at high rates, and because their lives are short regardless.

Which is the heart of the matter: Hunted or not, millions upon millions of doves will die each year. As with all healthy game bird populations, the proportion taken by hunters would have died anyway. In this and all other game populations, abundance or lack thereof generally is determined not by any ill effects of modern, well-regulated hunting, but by the amount of quality habitat available.

History has shown that if you want to save something on this planet, make it a huntable or fishable species and allow a constituency to form around it.

This is as true for elephants as it is for ducks; so, too, pheasants and rainbow trout. And many others. Who do you think has led the century-old fight for wetland preservation in this state? Upland restoration? And the preservation of cold-water streams in the southeast?

Hunters and anglers.

Consider also that Minnesota is a right-to-hunt state, as declared by a constitutional amendment approved by more than 70 percent of voters. Being so, why is the hunting of doves -- a populous, healthy game bird -- even being reviewed?

I know why. Because Dibble and his parroting supporters have feelings.

They don't know for a fact that hunting is hurting doves.

But they feel it.

They don't know for a fact that hunters leave doves in the field or use them for target practice.

But they feel it.

Here's a fact: Like all other modern, well-regulated game species, doves are a renewable resource. Though small -- as are sunfish, woodcock, snipe and other game -- they provide food and, yes, sport, at sustainable levels without negative consequence to the environment.

Irrespective of being sought by hunters.

Oh, that we could say the same for oil! And gas. And corn and soybeans, the expansion of which is now poised to wreak all manner of further havoc on our lands and waters.

Speaking of which, when thousands of hunters and anglers rallied on the Capitol Mall in recent years demanding the Legislature pass dedicated funding to save Minnesota's wetlands, lands, rivers and lakes, where was the Humane Society of the United States?

Where were its supporters?

Sportsmen and women could have used all the help they could get.

Perhaps the people with feelings just didn't feel like coming.

***********************************************************