Sunflowers Planted for Dove Hunters

These sunflower fields are on Pittman Robertson land; public hunting and nature-viewing land that is bought, or long-term leased, with dedicated tax revenue collected on the sales of guns, bullets, and archery equipment. For most of the year, no one hunts this land and it's open to walkers and birders.

There’s over 45 million acres of Pittman-Robertson land across the US — a massive public lands benefit.

Some small part of this land is planted to attract wildlife for hunting, such as the sunflowers, sorghum, and millet planted in these local fields to attract doves.

I am not a fan of dove hunting (there's not much meat on the birds, and it's mostly treated as skeet-shooting with live birds), but Mourning Doves are not in short supply and can take a fantastic rate of predation from hawks, falcons, cats, raccoons, possums, and guns thanks to the fact that they sit on up to six nests (each with just two eggs) a year. 

How many Mourning Doves are shot in the US every year?  Somewhere between 20 and 70 million a year -- out of a total US Mourning Dove population of about 194 million.