ore AUD UU BO UN BU ly iG berm ion 
“J 
the disease calls for emergency attempts at control, by the general distribu- 
tion of medicated grain. This year in San Diego three tons of such grain 
have been made available by the Fish & Game Department. 
Animal husbandry recognized year's ago that “contented cows” gave more 
and richer milk. Veterinarians and ranchers who grow fowl, agree that to 
bombard the nesting area from before sunrise to sunset during a consider- 
able period of the nesting cycle would be damaging. And J. W. Philpott 
has stated": “It would be impossible to set a hunting season where at least 
some doves would not be nesting in one area of California or another every 
month of the year.” 
CONCLUSION 
Game management biologists must recognize that they are dealing with 
a resource with a nervous system constructed on the same basic pattern as 
our own, a fact of vital importance during the reproductive cycle. The 
“nerennial nesting” habit of doves has been recognized as a serious man- 
agement problem for many years by many authorities and in the light of 
the above considered facts, it appears that to continue to misuse this re- 
source as a “game species” may well endanger its survival. Protection laws 
in twenty states and Canada have perhaps been the mitigating circumstance 
which has been instrumental in maintaining flocks at the present levels. 
And it must not ever be forgotten, regardless of the various reasons for 
the extinction of the passenger pigeon, that the authorities of that day, 
in whose hands rested the responsibility for the welfare of the species, 
openly and loudly proclaimed that these birds could never possibly be ex- 
terminated. We must not now allow short-sighted or misguided management 
to make itself heard above the still small voice of reason and science. 
REFERENCES: 
1. Outdoor California, November, 1956. 
2. Mourning Dove in Iowa, etc., H. E. McClure, Iowa State College Bulletin #10, 1942. 
3. Mourning Dove in Alabama, G. C. Moore & A, W. Pearson, Alabama Conservation De- 
partment, 1941. 
4. Life History, etc., of Western Mourning Doves, J. B. Cowan, California Dept. of Fish 
& Game, 1952. 
5. Fall of the Sparrow, Jay Williams. 
6. Mourning Dove in Alabama, J. E. Keeler, Alabama Conservation Department, 1952. 
7. Veterinary Parasitology, Geoffrey Lapage. 
8. Principles of Bacteriology and Immunity, Wilson and Miles, Vol. 1. 
9. Mourning Dove as a Gamebird, F. C. Lineoln, Dept. of the Interior, Circular #10, 1945. 
10. Texas Game and Fish Reports, W-30 R07, September, 1953. 
11. Central California Sportsman, J. W. Philpott, Editor, 1956. 
82259 Miles Ave., Indio, Calif. 
