PLAYERS

Why New York is missing an opportunity without a dove hunting season

Bill Conners
Outdoors

It’s often said things always happen in threes; I don’t believe they are necessarily good or bad things, they’re just things.   

This string of events started with an informal lunch meeting among a few “old” friends one day last week. Probably because there was strong representation from field dog owners and trainers at the table, it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to game bird hunting and which bird was the odds-on favorite among upland bird hunters. I felt like I had kicked a hornets’ nest when I cast my vote for the Mourning dove.

If a formal vote had been taken I think it would have been five to zip against me. Everyone else came to the defense of the ring-necked pheasant. I stood my ground in spite of what seemed to be a consensus opinion among them that there had to be more pheasant hunters than dove hunters. 

When I expressed my opinion I should have made it clear that I was speaking in the context of numbers of birds shot. I happened to have a few statistics in my war chest at the time and I knew, based on data collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, dove hunters have been harvesting about ten million birds a season in recent years. I shared that info, but it fell on deaf ears.

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Here in New York, we live in a cocoon where pheasant is king. We have our share of ruffed grouse hunters, but they are in the minority. And I don’t include preserve hunting in my “favorite game bird” counts.

In spite of efforts to open a dove season over the years, we remain one of eight states that will not relent. Five New England states — all but Rhode Island — as well as New York, New Jersey, and Michigan, do not have an open season for doves. That means 42 other states have dove seasons.

It was just a matter of a couple of days following the lunch time gabfest, I received a note from the Virginia Department of Natural Resources reminding hunters of the upcoming dove season. So, twice in just a couple of days the subject of doves surfaced in my conversation and thoughts. Could No. 3 be far behind?

I didn’t have to wait long for the answer, Saturday I opened my email and there was a note from a guy by the name of Fred Neff, Mr. Dove himself. Attached to the note was a scanned copy of the front cover of the September issue of Pennsylvania Game News — his arrives ahead of mine. On the cover was a Norman Rockwell-ish painting of a grandfather and grandson seated on the fringe of a field of sunflowers as a trio of Mourning doves rockets to within gun range. That is what I would call family time of the highest order.

Neff spent a significant part of his adult life trying to bring dove hunting to New York. He grew up in Pennsylvania and was primarily a bird hunter; pheasants, grouse and turkeys made him tingle. He always had a field dog at the ready.

I don’t know exactly when, but at some point he had decided that it was time for New York to acknowledge what most other states already knew, doves are plenty plentiful and are a missed hunting opportunity here in New York. 

I have a ream of paper he sent me a few years back. It’s a tutorial on everything you ever wanted to know about doves and dove hunting. I always assumed pheasants and pheasant hunters reigned supreme. After digesting much of what he sent me, I came to realize that the dove is theNo. 1 game bird in the U.S.

There are about 700,000 dove hunters and according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, about 200,000,000 doves. There were more doves at one time, but changing farming practices  and development have reduced dove habitat. And while we’ve seen a reduction in hunter numbers, dove hunting matches waterfowling for hunter participation and harvest.

Before you get yourself worked up over hunting doves, let’s think about the population and the number that hunters remove from the flocks. Hunters in the 42 states that have seasons harvested an estimated 11,700,000 birds, or about 6% of the total population.

Because doves are a migratory bird, they are protected under the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. A combination of federal and State regulations ensure that the birds continue to thrive while providing hunting opportunities. It is even possible that we may see an increase in the number of hunters. Nationally, it seems that the pandemic has driven renewed interest in fishing and turkey hunting and there is a possibility that dove hunting participation will also increase.

However, until New York reclassifies the dove from songbird to game bird it will be difficult to get a season established here.

Michigan is quite another story. That state’s Natural Resources Commission, with support from hunting groups, succeeded in getting a hunt scheduled in 2004, but it never got off the ground. Then a 2006 statewide referendum rejected Mourning dove hunting. Michigan hunters worked hard to get their season but failed to keep their eye on the ball and lost it when the referendum passed.

Here in New York, a dove season would promote additional license sales and would likely help with recruitment of new hunters and help keep older ones going afield longer.

By the way, while I may concede there may be more pheasant hunters than dove hunters, I firmly believe there are far more doves harvested than pheasants. Because pheasants are not migratory, data collection is problematic.

Federation’s Youth Pheasant Hunt

There may be an opening or two left for the Dutchess Federation’s Youth Pheasant Hunt in Lafayetteville in Milan on Sept. 25. Youth hunters 12-15 years of age who have completed Hunter Education and have a valid New York State Hunting License are eligible to participate. Call Anthony Pittore at 914-755-9667 to get registration details.

Bill Conners of the Federation of Fish and Game Clubs writes on outdoors issues. Email: conners@billconners.net.