Songbirds for food!

Songbirds for food! Compared with this, making kindlings of pianos and violins would be pious economy.-Our National Parks by John Muir

Trying to sneak legislation through Michigan's State Legislature repealing its 92 year-old ban on dove hunting has become more of an annual tradition for the US Sportsmen's Alliance (formerly the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America), National Rifle Association (NRA), and guns and ammunition lobby than their claim about dove hunting itself.

As the Michigan legislature recessed for its 2001 year-end break, the most recent bill (HB 5478) introduced by Representative Cameron Brown (R-Sturgis) was put on hold. This bill would allow the unelected, politically appointed Natural Resources Commission to decide which animals and birds can be hunted, taking the authority away from the legislature whose members answer to voters.

Preventing dove hunting has broad public support. The Detroit Free Press reports that Representative Susan Tabor (R-Lansing), sponsor of last year's failed attempt to repeal the ban on dove hunting, has her "fingerprints on Brown's bill." Chris Christoff, a reporter for the newspaper, said in his latest column that "no other single issue-not abortion, taxes, pay raises for politicians, nothing-elicits the outpouring of public outrage that shooting doves does. Lawmakers will tell you that. I'll attest, too."

In Wisconsin, the state's symbol of peace lost a very important legal battle this January when Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser upheld the Department of Natural Resources establishment of a hunting season. Groups that filed the suit have not decided if they will appeal. The first 60-day dove-hunting season was cancelled pending this decision.