Dove season discussed in legislative committee (audio)

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has proposed a 70-day dove hunting season in Iowa, to start sometime in September, with hunters allowed to “bag” 15 birds a day.  Representative Dawn Pettengill, a Republican from Mount Auburn, did some math and figured if the 15,000 hunters who are expected to apply for a dove hunting license bag their limit every day, that would be eight million dead doves in a year. Willie Suchy of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources notes that means each hunter would have to hunt every one of the 70 days to reach her eight million mark.

Suchy and Pettengill were in the same statehouse meeting room this afternoon as the Administrative Rules Review Committee on which Pettengill serves heard a briefing from Suchy about the department’s outline for the new dove hunting season.

A Sierra Club official spoke against the season, against lead shot, against “food plots” for the doves and against allowing hunters to sit in their pick-up and shoot at the doves. A spokesman for Pheasants Forever touted the sport of dove hunting and was briefly drawn into a discussion of the lack of pheasants in southern Iowa by a southern Iowa legislator who lamented the lack of pheasants in southern Iowa.  A man from Indianola who lobbied legislators to pass the dove hunting bill spoke as well.

Listen to the entire discussion, starting with Suchy’s briefing on the DNR’s approach to dove hunting rules.

AUDIO 34 min