Analysis
This article is based on Proposal three. It provides some background information on what the Michigan legislature had done before on this issue. Is this background information clear and help readers make the connection to the current Proposal?
Article Text
Michigan’s experimental three-year dove hunting season was halted in 2005 after one year because an opposing citizens group, the Lansing-based Committee to Restore the Dove Shooting Ban, collected enough signatures to put the question on the 2006 ballot.
The decision to designate the dove a game bird was made by the state Legislature in 2004, following a heated debates by those in favor and against.
The Legislature authorized a season and required hunters to buy a $2 dove stamp, money that would be used to help both game and non-game wildlife programs. It also required that the DNR manage the dove population responsibly.
The state Department of Natural Resources then established an experimental season in six southern counties along the Indiana border. The first season results were modest, according to state records, which show that 28,099 doves were killed by 3,000 hunters.
The three-season experiment was to provide real-time data to biologists who would be charged with assuring that doves were not over hunted and who would assess the viability of expanding the geographic area for the hunt.
Forty other states have a dove hunting season. State and federal wildlife officials consider the dove the most abundant gamebird in the nation. It is protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which allows hunting depending on the bird population. Surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimate there are 400 million mourning doves nationwide, of which 4 million migrate through Michigan.
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