After decades of controversy, Pennsylvania may finally outlaw the barbaric events, during which thousands of tame birds are brutally killed and discarded.
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It’s difficult to imagine a more barbaric, senseless activity.
Tame, hand-raised pigeons are crowded into cages, and then released one at a time as targets for “hunters” stationed as little as 20 yards away.
Many of the birds don’t even attempt to fly away, but land immediately and walk around as the shooters take aim. Most are shot within a few feet of the cages. But up to 70 percent of the birds don’t die right away, and are merely wounded.
That’s when the children come in. In past pigeon shoot events, “trapper boys,” aged between 8 and 14, take to the field after the shooting stops, to wring the wounded pigeons necks, rip off their heads, slam them into the ground, and load their bodies into sacks.
Thousands of the birds are thrown into dumpsters following an event.
For decades, Pennsylvania has been the bastion of “live pigeon shoots,” continuing the practice long after it has been outlawed most states. At the most famous such event, the annual Labor Day shoot in Hegins, Pennsylvania, up to 6,000 birds were massacred in a single day.
Now, after years of protests, court battles, and media condemnation, Pennsylvania may be poised to finally outlaw the pigeon shoot.
Legislators are expected to act as early as next month on a bill that would make the shoots illegal. The legislation,
H.B. 2998, is sponsored by Republican state representative Jacqueline Crahalla, and co-sponsored by 37 legislators from both sides of the aisle.
"Live pigeons shoots are banned in nearly every state except Pennsylvania. Real hunters don't shoot pigeons, and it's time we end these barbaric events once and for all,” said Rep. Crahalla.
The bill would make it a misdemeanor act of animal cruelty to attend, participate in, organize, or permit land to be used for a pigeon shoot, and also makes it a crime to help provide birds for such a purpose.
Long-time protestors of the pigeon shoot are hailing the bill as long overdue.
“We are pleased at the introduction of this needed legislation that would close a contentious chapter of Pennsylvania's history," says Heidi Prescott, senior vice president for The Humane Society of the United States.
Prescott was the national director of the Fund for Animals before the organization merged with HSUS in 2004. While working with the Fund, Prescott personally witnessed more than 50 pigeon shoots and helped coordinate large-scale protests at the Hegins event. On an annual basis, as many as 1,300 people would gather to protest the Hegins shoot, and to rescue and rehabilitate as many pigeons as possible. The protests frequently resulted in numerous arrests and even fistfights, and attracted large-scale media attention to the issue.
“You have to see a pigeon shoot to understand just how barbaric it is,” Prescott wrote in a recent op-ed in the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa. “Until then, you will find it hard to believe that otherwise decent people could engage in this kind of wanton cruelty toward defenseless birds.”
The Hegins pigeon shoot was discontinued in 1999, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that local humane officers could prosecute participants for acts that violated the state’s anti-cruelty codes.
However, smaller pigeon shoots have continued throughout Pennsylvania, and new ones are still being organized. In September, HSUS worked with local officials in Covington Township, Lackawanna County to get a court injunction to stop an out-of-state group from conducting a three-day pigeon shoot that might have wounded and killed up to 15,000 birds.
The events are normally held as fundraisers. While the carcasses of the dead animals are simply discarded, participants compete for cash and prizes based on their shooting ability.
“Live pigeon shoots can easily be replaced by clay shoots,” Prescott points out, although pigeon shoot enthusiasts have long resisted offers to replace their live targets with clay shoots.
“We praise Representative Crahalla and the legislature for addressing live pigeon shoots. Communities should no longer have to fight to keep out-of-state individuals from using tame animals as live targets in their backyards,” Prescott says.
If you live in Pennsylvania, please take action to help bring an end, once and for all, to these cruel events. Click here to find out how you can contact your legislator to urge passage of HB 2998 to outlaw live pigeon shoots.