Mourning Doves By Andrea Lothe

They are being hunted in many states. This is the Mourning Dove.

You can tell the difference between Mourning Doves and other birds by the spots on their backs.

Mourning Doves are being hunted until they are almost extinct. Mourning dove hunting is legal in almost all of the United States. Mourning doves are now on the endangered animals list because of being hunted.

Doves are hunted. Why? What did they do to you? There are already 109 game species in the state without allowing dove hunting. According to the Pioneer Press, Minnesota has more birds who can legally be shot than any other state. Shooting doves is unnecessary and serves no wildlife management purpose. Doves don't cause damage and are even known as the "farmer's friend" because they eat pest weed seeds. Many hunters don't even retrieve the doves they shoot, because doves yield such a small amount of meat. Many hunters use doves for target practice, sometimes even referring to them as "cheap skeet." Dove hunting produces unacceptably high wounding rates and can orphan young doves. Minnesota isn’t the only state that kills mourning doves. This is based on facts from http://www.hsus.org/wildlife_abuse/campaigns/doves/minnesota_doves.html it has lots of facts about mourning doves and how they are killed without reason.

Michael Markarian says, They are too small to provide any sustenance. They don’t cause any problems. They’re not overpopulated. These birds don’t cause car accidents. They don’t knock over your trash cans. They don’t spread diseases. These are gentle, inoffensive backyard songbirds, and they should not be treated as game.

And yet they are used as target practice. According to http://www.hsus.org/wildlife_abuse/campaigns/doves/ “More doves are killed each year—more than 20 million—than any other animal in the country.” It’s sad news for the doves if we keep this up. Michael Markarian needs your help, and so do all the rest of the doves. Help to work to save animals, and go to the Humane Society’s main webpage, at www.humanesociety.org. and try to help save animals.

The last time dove hunting was legal in Iowa was in 1918. A survey was taken in February, 2009 that shows that Iowa hunters oppose hunting doves to a two-one margin. Yay! Go Iowa voters! Keep working to save all endangered animals, not just doves.

Only 53% of the voters didn’t want to kill doves, but 27% wanted to have an open season. We need to work together to get that mere 53% of voters up until it’s almost unanimous. We need to save these doves!

We NEED to save the mourning doves We NEED to save the mourning doves. People need to understand that mourning doves will die out, and with them, all these predators:

Predators of Mourning Doves include Raccoons, hawks, owls, Blue Jays, squirrels, snakes, cats, dogs, and humans. Yes, Humans!! This information is from http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/mourning_dove.htm where it has all the information you need to know about doves.

Mourning Doves are common across the continent, and generally have prospered as people settled the landscape. This is despite their status as the continent's most popular game bird: hunters shoot more than 20 million Mourning Doves each year. Because of the birds' popularity, game managers monitor their numbers to set hunting limits. Although Mourning Doves seem to do well in the face of hunting pressure, they also face the less visible problem of lead poisoning. Mourning Doves forage on the ground, and in heavily hunted areas they may wind up eating fallen lead shot (records show some doves have eaten up to 43 pellets). Studies have found this problem is worst around fields specifically planted to attract the doves, and that about 1 in 20 doves wind up eating lead.

Food and Feeding Mourning doves natural foods are a wide variety of wild seeds, grains, and insects.  They often feed on grain in open fields and croplands.  They will be seen at feeders in larger numbers when the ground is covered in deep snow. Just as with other songbirds, food, water, and cover will attract them to your backyard.  Stock your feeders with cracked corn, millet, and a variety of other seeds to attract Mourning doves.  Doves are ground feeders, so tray feeders are best.  While many songbirds will scatter when jays or crows arrive, Mourning doves will just ignore them and keep eating.

Mourning doves live in flocks, and they eat seeds at beaches.