Posted: 4/21/04

Move to stop dove season fails

T.W. Budig
ECM Capitol Reporter

Minnesota is closer to having a mourning dove hunting season ó a hunt not seen since 1947.
An attempt to remove the proposed, controversial season from the House game and fish bill failed Monday in House floor action after a short debate.

ìThis beautiful bird is a songbird that adds to the quality of life in Minnesota,î said Rep. Alice Seagren, R-Bloomington, who offered the amendment to cull the season.

ìThis is one area I believe we donít need to go,î she said.

A single mourning dove provides meat enough only for a single meatball, Seagren said. A hunter who kills five doves will get about five meatballs on their plate, she said.

Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, said when he awoke in the morning and heard the cooing of mourning doves in the yard he knew ìthings were all right with the world.î

Rep. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights, said sheíd gotten lots of phone calls on the proposed season and her constituents do not support it.

Hackbarth lobbies

But Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, spoke in support of the provision, saying only Minnesota and Iowa currently do not have a mourning dove season in the region.

ìThere is absolutely no reason not to have a mourning dove hunting season,î Hackbarth said.

There are an estimated 12 million mourning doves ó a federal migratory bird ó in Minnesota, he said.

More than half of these birds wonít survive migration ó many more than hunters will ever kill, he argued.

The Wisconsin DNR estimates nation-wide hunting mortality on mourning doves as between 10-15 percent.

Besides being an economic boom to Greater Minnesota, a mourning dove season also provides a boom to Minnesota business, Hackbarth argued.

Federal Cartridge ships truckloads of shotgun shells with mourning dove shot to Texas and sells out even before the trucks get there, he said.

Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, gingerly supported the proposed season.

ìI canít tell my wife anything differently,î he said with a smile.

The House voted down Seagrenís amendment 78-49.

Local lawmakers supporting the amendment to remove the mourning dove hunting season provision were District 17B Rep. Pete Nelson, R-Lindstrom, and District 52B Rep. Rebecca Otto, DFL-May Township
District 52A Rep. Ray Vandeveer, R-Forest Lake, was among lawmakers voting against the amendment.

The Senate game and fish bill, which contains a mourning dove season language, has not yet had a Senate floor vote.

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