Ontario Opens Season on Mourning Doves, Quietly… Very, Very Quietly
by Barry Kent MacKay, Senior Program Associate
Born Free USA’s Canadian Representative
10/01/13
Rachel Carson, inspirational writer, biologist, and ecologist, said, “We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.” Agreed—but, such men tend to be disproportionately in charge of deciding such things, and therein lies a very big problem for wildlife.
Here in Ontario, there was an open hunting season for mourning doves in 1955. People were absolutely outraged, so it was closed, never to be considered again—until, quietly, with a minimum of public awareness, this year, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper opened a hunting season in southwestern Ontario. It is the 99th anniversary since the only other native species of dove, the passenger pigeon, went extinct (notwithstanding it had been far more abundant than mourning doves).
Back in 1955, most mourning doves migrated out of Ontario each fall, where they were then shot, by the millions, in various U.S. states. Since there was “selection” against migrating birds, the few that wintered in Ontario may have had, on average, better survival potential. (Although, in those days, such birds often had toes frozen off.) Decade by decade, several factors undoubtedly contributed to changes in migratory behavior: non-migrant survival, warming winter temperatures, increased dependence on mechanical harvesting that left plenty of waste grain for the birds to eat, the shift to absentee farming for tax purposes while speculators waited for land values to ripen, plus the popularity of doves with people who increasingly put out winter bird feeders in their gardens. Now, the mourning dove is a common winter bird here in southern Ontario. Ontario’s hunters can’t stand that… Why should Americans (and a few hunters in British Columbia, the only other Canadian province where mourning doves are hunted) have all the fun of killing these small, gentle birds?
Why can’t Ontarians kill doves, too? Because most Ontarians would be appalled at the thought. No matter. As one proponent of the hunt put it, “Because we have so many [doves], it’s a good opportunity for [young hunters] to get out and shoot and practice their skills.” Right… We need more people shooting guns… This, in the same week as the mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., followed by the 3-year-old and a dozen others shot in Chicago (not counting twice as many shot the same weekend in separate “incidents”)… All as we move toward the first anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook. As I write, people are being shot in a Nairobi, Kenya shopping mall for what, I can only assume, the shooters believe are good reasons. Society very rightly condemns such totally senseless acts of terror, or horror—and nothing, no cause, justifies any of it in any way. And, what of killing a dove? Is it really only justified because their fast flying makes them “sporting,” while they are tame and common enough to easily find?
Fellow bird artist and colleague, Julie Zickefoose, who lives in neighboring Ohio, wrote an excellent blog (http://www.juliezickefoose.com/writing/dove.php) in which she made the point, “Since the dove’s drumstick is less than an inch long, the breast meat is all that’s used. Each breast fillet is about as long as my thumb, and weighs one ounce or less before cooking.” She compared it to half of a hot-dog wiener.
We Ontarians must use steel, not lead, bullets, which could enhance wounding, but reduce toxicity. Or, even better; not shooting at all would eliminate both concerns.
Hunters are in decline, and that means the funding for “wildlife managers” is imperiled—and, as I said, they are disproportionately found in government wildlife agencies. And so, the push is on to recruit more people to part company with the majority of us who enjoy shooting nothing more lethal than a camera. There has been a weak attempt to try a favored tactic of demonizing their victims: too many doves can result in disease, they say (though there is no proof that they do, of course, or that it justifies killing healthy animals, be they doves, robins, or cardinals) and they claim that doves may spread weed seeds around (as do sparrows and larks, buntings and bobolinks… Who is next?)—but , again, with no proof or even likelihood that this is really an issue. It’s all quite silly, but cruelly lethal to a species that the vast majority of us simply enjoy.
We Ontarians—now that we know—will fight back, but we can use the help of our American neighbors. A brief note to the Prime Minister of Canada couldn’t hurt, and might help: The Honorable Stephen Harper, Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2, Phone: 1-800-622- 6232 , TTY: 1-800-465-7735, Fax: 613-941-6900, E-Mail: pm@pm.gc.ca. Tell him, politely and in your own words, not to kill the mourning doves. Let them continue to have Ontario as a place of refuge. Ontario has room for them and we want to welcome them with bird seed, not bird shot.
Band-tailed pigeon photo©Jim Robertson
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on The Monsters Among Us.
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog.
Harper is a blight on this country!!
beautiful photo, jim.
Thanks Beth
Could there possibly be a better exemplar of the baseness of hunting in general and the total moral degeneracy of “sport hunters” than open seasons on mourning doves? Gentle, harmless birds that yield hardly a morsel of flesh; whose wild populations can never be claimed to be in need of “management”. Anyone who supports open hunting seasons on such a creature is simply beyond the pale of humanity and deserves prompt elimination from the gene pool. I’d write on behalf of the mourning dove to the Right Honorable Mr. Harper, only I’d gag on having to use that salutation to address him.
Dove hunting is killing for the sake of killing.
Personally I do not see much reason or benefit for a hunt. But I did some research.
There was a hunt in 1955, there were approximately 300 birds harvested. There is also an annual hunt in B.C., and there has been for several years, they show their harvest as 300 per year. The Ontario government states the closure in 1955 as due to low hunter interest, and I would be surprised if it is very high today. Time will tell.
According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, the population has increased dramatically and can support a harvest. “The Ontario breeding population of mourning doves has increased substantially – three fold – in both numbers and distribution since the mid-late 1980s and mid-late 2000,” CWS said in the December notice. “Winter dove population sizes, as indexed by (the) Christmas Bird Count, have increased considerably since the late 1970s.”
Still not excessive population where I live as far as I can tell, but I can not argue those statements. In fact I don’t think year over year population at bird feeder has changed much over the years, yes there are many, but not significant increase.
The American mourning dove population is shown at between 300 to 400 million ( some estimates show over 400 million ) with between 10 to 20 million harvested each year.
The mourning dove is listed as a migratory species, and is controlled by our migratory bird act. Hence the licensing would be federal, with permits purchased at the Post Office. Any duck or goose hunter would already have a migratory bird permit, so this would not raise any additional revenue for the federal government, and zero for the province.
Seriously doubt that Harper would be involved in these decisions though, would or should a PM not leave this to the professionals at Environment Canada? One might think that is their job and not that of a PM.
I do not support it, but am not sure letters to. PM are right place to send them. Although they should be able to redirect them to the correct agency representatives.
As for harmless, we really should not be eating meat at all! A cow, pig chicken, turkey or lamb causes no more harm than these doves, why would we suggest this is wrong, and turn our backs on the slaughter of animals for consumption in the supermarket? Kind of makes many of us somewhat of a hypocrite. No issues for those who oppose this, but don’t stop here.
I agree with you that we should not be eating animals at all. But just because some bird is numerous doesn’t mean it’s our job to start killing them.
Agreed.
However, looking at the Environment Canada site, they apparently put out public notices in advance of any changes or proposed changes to the migratory bird act.
This was put out to the Canadian public December 2011… So guess we can not complain too loudly if we did not respond then, although comments after do not hurt. Might be something to watch in future though.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/rcom-mbhr/default.asp?lang=En&n=A5A064DE-1
Not sure where survey was completed, but according to the Environment Canada site, a public survey was completed.
“showed that a majority of Ontario residents polled in 2006 would not be opposed (58% in favour, 25% neutral and 17% opposed) to establishment of a Mourning Dove hunting season if it was determined that the Ontario population could sustain harvest.”
I wasn’t aware of the survey, and it states it as “small”, but does not state any specifics.
I’m a little troubled by your repeated use of the word “harvest”, originally a crop farming term, with respect to Mourning Doves. Normally, the word “harvest” connotes the acquisition of some usable commodity, like food or fiber, usually preceded by a period of careful husbanding. Since Mourning Doves are extracted from the wild and a single dead one yields hardly more than a morsel of flesh, what exactly are Mourning Dove killers “harvesting”? Does “harvesting” now subsume recreational killing? Following your apparent thought processes here, maybe we should expand the term “harvesting” to include what serial killers do to there victims, as like in “Ted Bundy harvested a whole lot of women” or “Josef Mengele harvested a number of twins”. Employing dissembling language is often the first step on the road to accepting atrocities.
Right, and a sure sign that someone is starting to get sucked into accepting the atrocities of hunting is when they start using the same demeaning terminology that hunters routinely toss around for the animals they objectify and kill. I recommend Brian read this site’s “About” page, before he ventures further into the territory of hunter-apologist and find his comments trash-canned and himself banned from speaking in hunter defense.
That is the word Environment Canada uses, and I was simply reusing their word. Apologies if that word is unacceptable. When I was reading the history on their (EC) site, that was the word they used.
Not a lot of new info here, but good read. http://www.juliezickefoose.com/writing/dove.php