With small game hunting getting into full gear, having opened Monday, it's interesting to note that our region's top selections of game species to hunt have become pretty limited. Gone are the wild pheasants. Thin is the population of varying hare (snowshoe rabbit). Grouse and woodcock are spotty at best. That leaves what? Deer, turkey, cottontail rabbit, squirrel and waterfowl, with deer and turkey being the current darlings of the DEC.
Where you aware that the Number One small game species in the nation isn't hunted in New York? It's also the most abundant and widespread small game species in the nation, numbering 400 million and annually attracting 2 million hunters. Sounds impossible, huh? Well, it's a fact. That game species is the dove, and it's fully protected in New York State, despite being classified nationally as a "migratory game bird."
According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, about 24 million doves are harvested by hunters each autumn, and that represents only about 6 percent of the total annual dove population. Officials, however, say hunting has little effect on dove numbers since the average life expectancy of a dove is a little less than one year due to other factors like predation, disease, weather and accidents. Efforts to make doves a huntable and managed game bird species in New York have been attempted several times, but have never been successful, primarily because of antiquated notions that doves are in the same category as protected songbirds. Much of that thinking, I believe, comes from years ago, when the doves' most northerly range was farther south, primarily ceasing in Pennsylvania. In recent decades, milder winters and agricultural changes have resulted in New York now being home to massive numbers of the birds.
Conservation is about properly managing species when changes in the species or habitat occurs. Take deer, for example. Hard to imagine there were no or very few deer in our region less than a hundred years ago. In recent decades, they've become one of our most common game species, even reaching pest proportions in some areas. Sound conservation management has reflected that, starting with a very modest hunting season and a one-buck limit, and advancing to nearly a two-month season and multiple-deer limits. Why? Because that's what conservation is all about. Without it, can you imagine what our deer situation would be? We'd either have very few, due to disease and starvation, or we'd be inundated with them.
As our local habitat has changed, the biggest losers have been the pheasant, grouse, varying hare and cottontail rabbit. Add to that list those who use to or want to hunt them. We wonder what would get more young people interested in the traditional outdoor activities that require training, responsibility and an annual license fee that supports conservation? Years ago, youngsters would be inclined to a lifelong love of the outdoors when they'd be introduced to small game hunting. However, today's youths, even those interested, are severely handicapped because of dwindling small game habitat and equally shrinking access in places to hunt.
Our climax-stage state forests certainly don't harbor much promise, since it's some of the poorest game habitat available. A day spent searching for grouse or woodcock might result in just a couple birds being flushed. And cottontail rabbits are primarily confined to thick low-growing cover, and much of that is nestled up against residential areas. So what does that leave us? Squirrels, deer and turkey. Maybe okay on the first and last species, but not many youths (and some adults) have the patience to sit for hours, waiting for a deer to appear.
I think it's high time to re-evaluate New York's outdated stance on doves. Re-classifying them as migratory game birds would accomplish three things. It would allow them to be managed by DEC just as waterfowl are. It would offer a modestly short hunting opportunity in September (much as Pennsylvania has with its dove season). And lastly, it would be a great step forward for introducing youths to the outdoors via an experience that would be neither boringly long or absent of game sighted but not necessarily harvested.
