Invasive doves reach King Salmon

Two Eurasian Collared Doves perching on a balcony and about to take flight. (Creative Commons photo by Horia Varlan)
Two Eurasian collared doves perching on a balcony and about to take flight. (Creative Commons photo by Horia Varlan)

An invasive species of dove was spotted in King Salmon Tuesday afternoon. It’s the farthest west the Eurasian collared dove has been found in the U.S.

Matthew McFarland was working outside of the inn he co-owns when he heard a whistling from the porch behind him.

“And I heard that noise, that distinctive noise that doves make. So I said ‘Oh, it’s just a dove!’ But then I thought to myself, ‘Well, we don’t have doves here,’” McFarland says.

McFarland thought he must be mistaken. But his cousin, who was working nearby, heard it too.

“He poked his head around the corner out and asked if we have doves here. I said, no, we don’t have doves here at all! And he said ‘Well, that was a dove!’ So we went around the house and it had flown up and landed on one of the power lines.”

McFarland quickly took a few photos. It was a gray dove, with a big black band across the back of its neck and a straight edge on the bottom of its tail.

He was pretty sure he knew what kind of dove this was – he’d seen them when he lived in Arizona – but he called Stuart Fety, a biological technician with Fish and Wildlife in King Salmon.

“It was in fact a Eurasian collared dove, surprisingly enough,” Fety says.

He says this particular species has a long history of moving in where it shouldn’t. It’s native to Europe and Asia, but first became established in the U.S. in 1982 after escaping a pet shop in Florida, Fety says.

“And they were first seen in Alaska in 2009 along the Denali Highway… and they’ve kinda rapidly expanded their range,” he says.

Until now, the furthest west the dove had been seen was in Homer, a few weeks ago.

So how can these doves thrive in habitats ranging from Florida to Alaska? Fety says they’re just really good at finding a niche wherever humans live.

“They’re well adapted to utilizing food put out by people in their feeders and just utilizing resources around urban or developed areas,” he says.

Fety says Fish and Wildlife isn’t too worried about the dove.  Unlike some invasive species, such as Chena Slough elodea or Adak Island rats, he says the Eurasian collared dove doesn’t really threaten native wildlife, and he was planning on leaving it alone.

As many Lower 48 hunters will attest, doves are quite a tasty prey. Whether this dove is a lone wanderer, or a forerunner for a whole new population, birdwatchers in Bristol Bay can keep an eye, an ear, and maybe a shotgun out for this unique visitor.

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