Give new dove season a chance

I drive 30 miles twice a day on a bus route in flat farm land. The total number of pheasants I've seen since the first of the year, maybe eight. One covey of partridge. Doves, I see five to six per mile. Why?

I look at the habitat on my route, manicured waterways, fence rows gone, sloughs and pastures gone. Modern harvesting equipment has very small losses of grain and, following the harvest, the fields are tilled so no cover or food is left. A field mouse would have difficulty surviving a winter. But that doesn't seem to bother doves. Yet I still don't think many hunters will take up dove hunting like they did on pheasants years go.

Steel shot versus lead. When the ban on lead shot first took place, it was for waterfowl. They were being hunted over their habitat with heavy loads (big BBs) in concentrated barrels. Doves will be hunted with light loads (small BBs) in barrels that shoot wider patterns over a much bigger landscape. Let's give the new dove season a chance before we adjust it or condemn it.

Mike Casey

Fayette