10 THETA U DIU BOW? BUD Dee 
starvation and disease bring it under control. Two well-known examples 
in our country of the control placed upon species by food conditions are 
the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the Everglade Kite. The food supply of 
the Ivory-bill became restricted to a certain locality with the result that 
the few surviving in the Singer tract are about all of the species left 
_ between them and extinction. The natural food of the kite is a snail which 
is fast disappearing. That shortage and persecution by hunters who 
mistake the kite for a hawk are bringing it dangerously close to its end. 
Thus nature, having been lavish in permitting increase of its many 
species, corrects itself by its own ruthlessness. 
FT fT FI 
Give the Mourning Dove a Break 
COOPERATIVE STUDY in eleven southern states to establish facts upon which 
to base mourning dove shooting seasons is under way. It is about time. 
Not that we can see any excuse, anywhere, for classing this agriculturally 
valuable, four and one-half ounce bird as “game,” but, if target-hungry 
gunners are going to be allowed to continue to shoot this beautiful and 
valuable dove, regulations should be based on something more than political 
pressure and desire to sell hunting licenses. 
The mourning dove is a migratory bird and therefore under the 
jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and subject to the migratory 
bird hunting regulations. Mourning doves are now shot legally during the 
season in 26 states; the rest provide complete protection. Canada and all 
of the northern states except Illinois, Idaho and Oregon protect this bird. 
Illinois still permits a reprehensible open season starting September 1, a 
date upon which some twenty percent of the dove nests contain young 
doomed to starvation when their parents are shot. Maryland, Kentucky, 
Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, 
Idaho, Nevada and Oregon also have a September first opening date for 
the dove season, all undoubtedly cruelly dooming to death some fledglings. 
Minnesota, through the indefatigable leadership of Guy Atherton and 
the St. Paul Bird Club, was the latest state to join the protectionist ranks. 
Nebraska, after a long closed season, fell off the band wagon in 1947 but 
climbed back on in 1948, when even a poll of gunners showed 74 percent 
for continued protection. 
Dr. K. Elliott McClure, biologist, declares: ‘There should be no hunt- 
ing of doves north of the 37th parallel. Probably the division line should 
be along the southern border of Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, 
Colorado, and across Nevada and central California. All of the area north 
of this boundary should remain as a vast breeding range to maintain the 
species and to provide a shootable surplus.”’ 
Yet today the mourning dove is still being shot where it should not be 
shot, and is a favourite target farther south, where too little is known about 
its habits. It is a frequent target for boys, who kill many immature doves 
whose minute amount of edible flesh is too little to bother with, and the 
birds are left to rot. 
