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Today is Monday, December 15. Governor Cuomo has until Wednesday December 17, presumably until midnight, to act on the anti DEC legislation out of Queens. The legislation is on the governor’s desk, right next to NY Dove Hunting’s petition asking him to VETO it. NY Dove Hunting has reported and informed on this issue for a solid five months. In the future, we need all to pay better attention to what we promulgate and mobilize faster. However, there still is three days. Let’s test how organized we are and our ability to mobilize. One hundred emails / phone calls to the governor’s office each of those three days, up to and including Wednseday. Three hundred contacts POLITELY asking Governor Cuomo to VETO this legislation. NYDH has outlined many useful “talking points” to use in constructing a message about this legislation. At this stage in the game, we are not going to dredge it all up, but it is published online. Some of the lesser used material centers around the need to manage wildlife across government borders. Any Governor with presidential ambitions might be behooved to consider how conservation-minded United States citizens who do not live in Brooklyn and Queens might view this legislation mostly driven out of two boroughs of NYC. Many persons contacting the Governor about this legislation used analogies with snake heads and feral swine. However, the Governor lives in Long Island, essentially NYC. Therefore, he may relate better to Norway rats, black rats, house mice, Pigeons (which are really “rock doves” another Bird of Peace you know); English or house sparrows, and European starlings. All of these came here oversees in small numbers. We might throw in the Quaker parrot or monk parakeet, which have established colonies in “ Tony Avella County; ” however, there currently is also legislation pending which will reclassify Quaker parrots from unprotected wildlife to protected bird. That’s another chapter and another challenge coming up. There really is no need to get into detail at this stage, unless you feel compelled to. A simple, polite contact, perhaps using one or two talking points, or merely saying that you desire the legislation is VETOED is sufficient. Does your rod and gun meet tomorrow? Are you bringing a petition and/or form letters and pressing everyone to engage? Are you on social media and / or contacting your email contacts about this? As stated, after five solid months of promulgating this, the response was not satisfactory. In the same time, the antis generate tens of thousands of petition signatures and managed to bring this through the legislature. Prior to those five months, the DEC held a public review phase, during which we urged the sporting community to engage. The antis were extremely active in the public review of the DEC’s mute swan strategy, while most sportsmen never even heard of a mute swan… The next MODO bill (mourning dove) must be fully engaged. One of the excuses of Senator Grisanti (who was voted out this election ) was that he and other lawmakers heard from plenty of people opposed to dove hunting, and this was the only contact he and others had in support of it. Some of this falls on the erroneous belief that 1) Pro hunting legislation can escape the radar of anti hunting organizations, it will not however. 2) Failure to understand that environmental conservation regulations will almost always be subject to a public review phase, and that public review phase will be advertised. Speaking of Grisanti, his departure opens the door for a new Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chairman. The Assembly Cahir position of the same committee is also vacated by the retirement of Robert Sweeney. The new appointments will be interesting. The senate version of the mute swan bill was sponsored by Tony Avella, who is on the Senate En-Con Committee. The assembly version of the mute swan bill was sponsored by Cyronowitz, who is on the Assembly En-Con Committee. This is not suggesting that these two lawmakers will be appointed to chair the committee in their respective houses, but it is a possibility. The En-Con chairpersons are the gate keepers to all DEC related legislation. They decide if it moves forward and also if it expires in what they call the “suspense file”…