Dove hunting led to greater land conservation in Lowcountry

Dove season opens Saturday, and everyone in the Lowcountry owes the fluttering targets a 21-gun salute.

If not for the magic of the hunt, more of the Lowcountry now would be pavement.

It seems odd that killing things has helped conserve natural resources. But it's true.

These days, the first weekend in September is better known in the Lowcountry for a final fling at the beach, a Celebrity Golf Tournament to benefit children's charities or, better yet, the kickoff of college football season.

But dove shoots are a sporting event and a social event wrapped into one. The opening-day gala might include a fish fry or a shrimp boil, and it might turn into something that goes on all weekend.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources says mourning doves "are among the most abundant birds in South Carolina and are second only to deer in hunting popularity in the state. Each year in South Carolina, about 45,000 dove hunters harvest about 900,000 doves."

Beyond the numbers, which add up to big bucks in the Lowcountry's rural economy, lies something harder to compute. It's the lure of the blessed fields and streams that define the Lowcountry.

Maybe writer Archibald Rutledge can explain it. He was reared in the Lowcountry on a place near McClellanville that once hosted George Washington. He went up North to teach school but came home to become our state's first poet laureate.

Rutledge wrote in an essay called "Oh, these hunters!": "I can pass thousands of men on the city streets; they may mean nothing to me, and I certainly may mean less than nothing to them. But when I meet a hunter in the lonely woods or on the windswept marshes, something draws us together."

It was that "something" that drew fabulously wealthy Americans to the Lowcountry in the early 20th century. They bought massive old plantations for one purpose: to hunt birds. Quail, ducks, turkey, marsh hens and doves brought them here. The late J.E. McTeer, a colorful Beaufort County sheriff, described their grandiose approach as "hunting deluxe." He wrote:

"Lined up outside (for the afternoon dove and quail hunts) was what appeared to be a safari: dog trucks, quail wagons, 'chuck' or food wagon with heated and cooled compartments, maids, butler, and chef's station wagon, and, by the way, the chef was right from France."

Odd ducks, maybe: people who had fresh snails shipped by rail to Yemassee for their silver service in the woods. But many of those same people and their heirs ensured that wide cuts of the Lowcountry remain preserved today by placing their vast land holdings in conservation easements.

Let us not mourn the dove.