Almost no other hunt in North America triggers such an extreme reaction as does the annual September dove hunt. No animal I have hunted, and I’ve hunted swans and cranes and bunny rabbits, has elicited such a violently emotional response as has the dove.
And it is the mourning dove in particular that critics get exercised about. We hunt four species of doves in the United States: the mourning, the white-winged, the white-tipped and the invasive Eurasian collared dove, as well as their cousins the common and band-tailed pigeons. None of the others seems to bring the hate like the mourning dove.
One reason is because pretty much everyone knows the mourning dove. Zenaida macroura live everywhere in the Lower 48 and Mexico, as well as throughout the southern edge of Canada. In many places, they are the single most abundant bird in the landscape.
The US Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that there are more than 350 million mourning doves in the continental U.S. Hunting accounts for only about 5 percent of that population’s annual mortality.
As of this writing, 42 states, as well as Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, allow dove hunting. The only states that still ban it are Michigan and the Northeast.
There are several reasons for these bans. One argument is climate: Doves are hot-weather birds, and tend to exist in lesser numbers in the cooler Northeast. But healthy dove seasons in places such as Alberta and British Columbia, not to mention the Dakotas and Montana, cast that argument into doubt.
Some oppose the dove hunt because, well, doves are cute. And they frequently appear at backyard feeders. This familiarity bonds doves to a certain set of people in a way that, say, grouse do not.
Most bird hunters will also freely admit that birds in their own backyards are off limits; you often see this with quail where they are common visitors to feeders. I understand this. I am reasonably sure that if it were legal to shoot doves in my yard (it’s not), that I would give them a pass – in my yard.
Some oppose the hunt on religious grounds – after all, a white turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur) is considered by some as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. Turtle doves don’t live in North America, nor are there any white doves living wild here, but this hasn’t seemed to stop some. Hard to argue with religion.
Another argument I find even less tenable is that since doves are small, they are not worth hunting. “There’s no meat on them!” is the cry I often hear. Uh… you eat shrimp or oysters, don’t you? How about bluegills? They all have less meat on them than a dove. Since when were humans forced to eat only large things? It’s crazy talk.
Even sillier is the claim that dove hunters don’t eat their birds. That’s insanity. The entire point of shooting doves is to eat them, and to argue otherwise is to do so out of profound ignorance.
But the primary argument against dove hunting is that they are a protected songbird, not a game bird.
That argument has a dark past.
Let me state at the outset that I do not believe that everyone opposing the hunting of doves is bigoted or racist. But the original proponent of the ban certainly was.
His name was William Hornaday, known primarily as the guy who once put Ota Benga, a Pygmy from Congo, in a zoo. Yes, you read that right. Hornaday wrote a book in 1913 called Our Vanishing Wildlife, a polemic against market hunting that, while strident, does make many excellent points against unregulated hunting.
In addition to putting Africans in zoos, Hornaday also happened to be one of the principal voices in the movement to shut down unregulated market hunting. For this he should be thanked. In the century since market hunting was banned, no species in North America has gone extinct because of regulated hunting.
Doves included.
But the chapter in Our Vanishing Wildlife that covers doves stands out: It’s titled “Destruction of Song Birds by Southern Negroes and Poor Whites.” Hornaday claims to not be affected by “race prejudice,” then goes on to state that “I am strongly prejudiced against the people of any race, creed, club, state or nation who make a specialty of any particularly offensive type of bird or wild animal slaughter; and I do not care who knows it.”
Anti-rural, anti-Southern, classist, racist and bigoted speech marks a common thread through Hornaday’s writing. Although born and raised in the Midwest, Hornaday at the time had become a wealthy New Yorker.
Hornaday argues that doves and pigeons were never considered game, which is laughable considering how popular the hunting of passenger pigeons was in his day. In the 19th Century, unregulated dove and pigeon hunting was the rule, not the exception.
He attacks Italians for shooting “everything that wear feathers” and “in the South, the negroes and poor whites are killing song-birds, woodpeckers and doves for food.” Why else would anyone shoot them?
A subsequent conversation he relates, with a “female colored servant” refers to her “bright smile and flashing teeth” as he tries (poorly) to recreate her accent. You can practically see the blackface.
Interestingly, Hornaday then lists the states with a dove season: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Hornaday fails to note that Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nevada and Colorado also had dove hunts at the time.
“The killing of doves represents a great and widespread decline in the ethics of sportsmanship. In the states named, a great many men who call themselves sportsmen indulge in the cheap and ignoble pastime of potting weak and confiding doves.”
Keep in mind that Hornaday lived in New York City, and had almost certainly never tried to shoot a flying dove, which is among the fastest and most aerobatic game birds in the world. Far from “weak and confiding,” doves are – with the lone exception of the pigeon – the hardest game bird to hit, with the possible exception of the bobwhite. On average, hunters shoot more than seven shells for every bird they connect with. No other game animal is so elusive in the air.
Nonetheless, Hornady used his influence to ban dove hunting by legally classifying doves as songbirds in the Yankee Northeast; now only Rhode Island still allows it.
Where does this all leave us?
First, that the hunting and eating of doves is and always has been a pursuit readily available to all races, nationalities, income levels and so on. It is one of the most accessible hunts in North America.
Hunting doves does not damage their populations, which are increasing in most states. As a species, they’re doing just fine.
Opposition to the hunting of doves has always originated in the urban Northeast, and often contains more than a whiff of bigotry, anti-rural and elitist rhetoric. Again, I am not saying that everyone who doesn’t like the hunting of doves suffers from these character flaws. What I am saying is that the rhetoric of the organized opposition to the hunt does.
If your only exposure to doves is their cooing and appearance at your feeder, then it is understandable that you might not place them in your mental “for eating” bucket. But millions of Americans do. They may or may not be the Americans you know – you might be surprised if you ask your friends who hunt – but these Americans are not monsters bent on killing all that is beautiful in this world.
They – I – are only out for a challenging shoot, the camaraderie of the hunt, and, at the end, one helluva barbecue.
Dove Hunting Ban’s Bigoted Past
I went on my first dove hunt this year, in Ontario, and have already dealt with some of the rhetoric you wrote about. I was quite surprised by it, since no one had bothered questioning me about any of my other hunts (other than an attempt at bear hunting) in the last few years. It all makes a bit more sense (while remaining nonsensical) after reading this piece!
I am one of those feeder people, although when I at them for the first time at your place, I LOVED them! Still, inexplicably, no interest in hunting them. Maybe that’ll change.