FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



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Fisure 5. — Dove hunting on typical mourning dove habitat. Hunters find 25 to 50 per- 

 cent of the immature young of the year and 1 5 percent of the season's occupied nests 

 in September. [Photographed by Allen M. Pearson.] 



SO, with many locally breeding birds still occupied with nesting 

 activities, opening a shooting season at that time would be poor man- 

 agement, as well as inhumane because of the starvation of young it 

 would cause. 



Informed public sentiment is necessary to the promulgation and 

 enforcement of satisfactory laws and regulations. That it can be 

 achieved has been abundantly demonstrated in Alabama where the 

 results of the extensive study made by George C. Aloore and Allen 

 M. Pearson, of the Alabama Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, 

 sponsored by the State Department of Conservation, the Alabama 

 Polytechnic Institute, the American Wildlife Institute, and the 

 United States Fish and Wildlife Service, have been given wide pub- 

 licity. As a result, proposal of a hunting season that does not con- 

 form to the recommendations made brings forth a storm of protest 

 from the sportsmen. The findings of this investigation apply more 

 or less to all of the Southeastern States and should in principle guide 

 the management of the mourning dove in that region. 



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