A MoDo Sandwich

In 1998, Ohio citizens went to the polls and voted to legalize the hunting of mourning doves. Last year, according to the Ohio DNR website, 50,000 hunters took 300,000 mourning doves.

I am not anti-hunting. But hunting mourning doves seems to me to be more about having something challenging to shoot on the wing, than it does about putting food on the table. Once you clean a mourning dove, removing all the feathers, bones, and other inedibles, you are left with a very small piece of breast meat (that may still have some shot pellets in it.) According to one estimate, one modo yields about half a hotdog's worth of meat. It's a lot of work for not much food. To feed a family of four (at two wieners per), a hunter would have to bag at least 16 mourning doves. For a look back at the 1998 debate about the dove-hunting issue here in Ohio, see Julie Zickefoose's excellent article. And while you're at it, visit her compelling blog.

Do you know any terms of venery? A paddle of ducks, a murder of crows, an exaltation of larks, an ostentation of peacocks, and so on? Gazing out into our yard this morning, I spied, under our pine trees, eating our cracked corn, a sandwich of mourning doves.