February 26, 2012
By Michael C. Bolton, AL.com
The rules about what is a baited field has caused some dove
hunters to give up.
It was with great
interest that many Alabama dove hunters watched the case of former
Alabama legislator Preston C. Minus Jr. last week.
Minus, of
Gainesville in west Alabama, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a
Birmingham federal court to placing bait on his property to lure and
attract mourning doves for hunters. He was socked with a hefty
$5,775 fine and given 36 months' probation.
The
sentencing was made somewhat more complex by the fact that Minus
owns a commercial hunting operation and he was charged with baiting
a field for paying customers. State wildlife enforcement officials
and federal wildlife agents say they observed the baited field for
nine days prior to the pay hunt. On the opening day of the 2009
season, 37 hunters paid $100 each to hunt there. Officers rolled in
after 84 doves had been killed.
I guess only Minus knows
whether the field was purposely baited to entice birds to his
expensive dove hunt. I imagine people who pay $100 to hunt don't
think too highly of a field that has no birds.
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