Shooting the Bird of Peace into Pieces

Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. The Spanish flu pandemic swept the globe. World War I was just ending. A lot has happened since 1918, but one thing has stayed the same for these 93 years: Mourning doves have been protected in Iowa. Sadly, that may change this fall, under a new bill fast-tracked through the capitol this week, with hardly a word of debate. It’s one of the most cynical and underhanded maneuvers of political gamesmanship that I have seen in any state legislature.

After years of trying to open a new dove hunting season and being beaten back in the legislature, the champions of shooting doves, led by Sen. Dick Dearden, D-Des Moines, held their fire this year. Dearden introduced a dove hunting bill on the day before the deadline for legislation to pass subcommittee and stay alive for the year. Dearden is the chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee, and he apparently rushed it through without even consulting some fellow committee members.

On Tuesday of this week, the bill was brought to the Senate floor and approved by a vote of 30-18. It was sent to the House the very next day without any committee consideration or serious vetting of the issues (an unrelated bill on raccoon hunting was stripped completely and the mourning dove language was substituted in its place). The House approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 58-39, and it now goes to Gov. Terry Branstad for his signature. This is lawmaking at warp speed, with the bill pushed ahead so fast and with the obvious intention of diminishing debate and denying citizen input to an extreme extent. It is the antithesis of deliberative democracy.

We are grateful to Reps. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, and Charles Isenhart, D-Dubuque, for speaking out against the bill on the House floor, and for offering amendments to the legislation—such as prohibiting the hunting of mourning doves over bait and near residences and with toxic lead shot—which were unfortunately defeated. As Rep. Mascher told the Des Moines Register, “The whole idea was to get it through the Senate and to get it through the House as quickly as possible so the public could not weigh in. That’s unfortunate. That is really unfortunate because some of us in this chamber value that process.”

It’s not only the democratic process that will suffer if dove hunting begins this fall for the first time in nearly a century. Hundreds of thousands of birds will be shot for target practice, many of them wounded and left unretrieved to suffer and die from their injuries; doves have such a small amount of meat on their tiny bodies, especially after being riddled with lead shot, that many hunters don’t even bother to collect them. If hunting begins in September, as it does in most other states, doves will be nesting and their orphaned young will be left to starve to death.

All for what purpose? Doves are not overpopulated, and there is no management rationale. They do not cause car accidents, knock over trash cans, or come into conflict with people. In fact, doves are known as the “farmer’s friend” because they eat weed seeds on the ground, acting as a natural herbicide. The best argument Dearden and his allies could muster is that other states shoot doves, so Iowa should shoot them too, in an “all your friends jumped off a bridge” race to the bottom of policymaking.

The last time a Midwestern state considered dove hunting was in 2006, when Michigan voters were asked to approve a new dove hunting season after a century of dove protection. Voters heard the arguments on both sides, including a major campaign from the NRA and other dove hunting proponents, and overwhelmingly rejected Proposal 3, a statewide referendum which would have allowed dove hunting, by a landslide vote of 69% to 31%. Michigan is one of the biggest hunting states in the country, but voters rejected dove hunting in each of the 83 counties in the state, from the most urban to the most rural. Iowa does not allow the referendum process, but the results would likely be the same, as a statewide poll conducted just this week concluded that Iowa voters oppose dove hunting by a more than two-to-one margin.

Since Iowa voters won’t have their say on the issue, the decision rests with Gov. Branstad, who has already publicly stated that he plans to sign the dove hunting bill. It’s time for him to hear from concerned citizens who oppose dove hunting and it’s time for him to listen to the people of Iowa. Please call him today at 515.281.5211 and ask him to veto S.F. 464. Let’s hope that he changes his mind on the issue and musters the same political fortitude that then-Gov. Tom Vilsack (now U.S. Secretary of Agriculture) exhibited in 2001 the last time a dove hunting bill made it to the Iowa governor’s mansion.

If you live in Iowa, it’s important to know how your own elected officials voted this week on the dove hunting bill. (Click here to find the names of your state legislators.) If they voted yes, please let them know how disappointed you are that they caved in to special interests and went along with this farcical process. If they voted no on dove hunting, please let them know how grateful you are that they stood up for Iowa citizens and the gentle bird of peace.

Senators Voting "Yes" on Dove Hunting:

Bill Anderson 712.898.2505
Robert Bacon 515.387.8969
Merlin Bartz 641.748.2724
Jerry Behn 515.432.7327
Rick Bertrand 712.253.7096
Dennis Black 641.975.8608
Nancy Boettger 712.744.3290
Tod Bowman 563.652.5499
Mark Chelgren 641.777.7047
Thomas Courtney 319.759.5334
Dick Dearden 515.262.1203
Bill Dix 319.885.6790
Joni Ernst 712.621.4931
Randy Feenstra 712.439.1244
Gene Fraise 319.528.6176
Michael Gronstal 712.328.2808
James Hahn 563.263.1208
Shawn Hamerlinck 563.843.3922
Hubert Houser 712.486.2597
David Johnson 712.758.3280
Steve Kettering 712.657.3347
John P. (Jack) Kibbie 712.852.4140
Paul McKinley 641.774.5784
Amanda Ragan 641.424.0874
Tom Rielly 641.673.5878
Roby Smith 563.386.0179
Steven Sodders 641.483.2383
Kent Sorenson 515.962.2192
Jack Whitver 515.865.6394
Mary Jo Wilhelm 563.547.4156