Bucks live-pigeon shoot spurs police call - again

[Bucks_Man]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo...l_-_again.html

By Larry King

Inquirer Staff Writer

After a seven-month truce, the Pigeon War of Bucks County is on again.
Hostilities resumed Nov. 14 when the Philadelphia Gun Club held a live-pigeon shoot on its riverfront property in Bensalem - and opponents called out the police.

"I saw wounded birds flying off the gun club's property into the nearby neighborhood," said Philadelphia lawyer Elissa Katz, an anticruelty advocate. "I also saw dead birds floating in the river."

The shoot was unexpected. Bensalem Township officials had said in April that the club had promised to stop using live birds for target practice.

In return, police withdrew citations against the organization's president, Leo Holt, that accused him of animal cruelty and violating a township ordinance banning most gunfire.

"We want them to cease and desist what they are doing, and I think we have come to that agreement," Public Safety Director Fred Harran said at the time.

Bensalem police have announced no charges stemming from the Nov. 14 shoot. Harran and Township Solicitor Joseph Pizzo did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

John VanLuvanee, a Doylestown lawyer who represents the gun club, also did not return repeated calls.

Holt, in a telephone interview, said the gun club "is doing nothing illegal or improper" in resuming the shoots. He declined to say how soon, or how often, others might take place.

Heidi Prescott, senior vice president for campaigns for the Humane Society of the United States, has jousted with the gun club for nearly a decade over the shoots.

"Once again, their arrogance at flouting the will of the township is surprising," Prescott said. "But each time this happens, I'm certainly less surprised."

Pennsylvania is the only state in which live-pigeon shoots still openly take place, Prescott said. Almost every other state, she said, has outlawed such events, in which birds typically are launched from spring-loaded boxes on the ground and are shot as they take wing.

"Honest opinions differ on the shooting," Holt said, but the activity "is protected by the laws of the commonwealth and the Constitution."

That could soon be tested in Berks County, where the county Humane Society recently filed charges against the Pike Township Sportsmen's Association under the state's anticruelty statute. The case is scheduled for a court hearing Dec. 10.

With bills seeking to outlaw pigeon shoots stalled in Harrisburg, "we are just trying to put the existing [cruelty] law to the test," said Karel Minor, executive director of the Berks Humane Society.

"Our issue is not with weapons or shooting," Minor said, noting that his organization has hunters on its governing board. "Our issue is with this one particular practice that all of our hunter-supporters do not think is reasonable. I have yet to find one who thinks this is a good thing."

Under Pennsylvania law, anyone who "wantonly or cruelly ill-treats, overloads, beats [or] otherwise abuses any animal" is guilty of a summary offense, typically punishable by a fine.

Bensalem also has an ordinance that bans shooting guns in the township under most circumstances. The 132-year-old gun club contends that since it predates that law, its activities should be grandfathered in.

Katz said she believed that she and other activists had put an end to the Bensalem shoots last spring.

She filed a complaint with the township after witnessing a March 14 pigeon shoot at the gun club's secluded, 17-acre site along the Delaware River. Earlier, Prescott videotaped a shoot in December from an adjacent property.

Police responded by citing Holt, but withdrew the case under what they thought was a pledge to end the live shoots. Holt declined to comment on any such deal.

"I was satisfied personally with the withdrawal of the citations," he said, "and that's as much as I want to say."

Holt suggested that an adjacent property owner who has repeatedly complained of the shoots might have an agenda beyond the birds' welfare.

That neighbor, Otto Grupp, acknowledged that his family someday hoped to develop housing on its seven-acre tract just south of the club. He said there was "no question" that gunfire of any kind would impede that plan.

But Grupp said that was not his chief motivation for opposing the shoots, which typically leave his land littered with a half-dozen dead or dying pigeons.

"My objection is the shooting of the birds," he said. "I do not object to hunting, but there is nothing sporting about having pigeons thrown up out of a trap 25 yards in front of you and shot.

"It's cruelty to the birds."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer Larry King
at 215-345-0446 or lking@phillynews.com.

[pred]

Well not to start a flame here.
BUT I think that IF you are going to shoot an animal you'de better be getting ready to eat it.
Dove hunts are quite common and I hear are quite tasty....
They could use clays instead of pigeons.
NOW I will say that there are too many Pigeons in Phila, And something should be done with them, But I doubt that these were captured off of bridges and buildings locally.
So I agree with stopping this unless the folks shooting them are prepared to eat them!
Peter

[crlovel]

Well not to start a flame here.
BUT I think that IF you are going to shoot an animal you'de better be getting ready to eat it.
Dove hunts are quite common and I hear are quite tasty....
They could use clays instead of pigeons.
NOW I will say that there are too many Pigeons in Phila, And something should be done with them, But I doubt that these were captured off of bridges and buildings locally.
So I agree with stopping this unless the folks shooting them are prepared to eat them!
Peter

^^ What he said. I'm all for hunting, but this isn't hunting. This is just killing for sport, which is no better then dog-fighting or cock fights. Use clays.

[dsnover]

I'll probably get flamed here: While I certainly don't condone true 'cruelty' to animals (ie, duct-taping a cat, dousing a dog with gas and lighting it, and some other obvious forms meant to cause slow and painful death), and as much as I _personally_ don't care to participate in an event like this, I don't see a problem with it, either. I'd prefer they be eaten afterward, but then again, pigeons aren't exactly on the endangered species list. Maybe they could figure out a way to bring some seagulls in for the fun, and maybe some crows too.

I don't consider animals to be equal to humans in rights. I find it odd that a very vocal minority of people who DO think animals to be equal to humans, also tend to be OK with acts of violence against people who (horrors!) wear a fur coat.

PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

[theo]

Also being discussed here.

http://forum.pafoa.org/hunting-23/79...t-hunting.html

[RJT]

if it's that universally disliked then get it outlawed like so many other states have done, till then tough cookies...

I'm of mixed opinions on the "anti discharge" laws but 1887 has got to predate enough to be grandfathered...and I sure as hell don't wanna give the government ideas that it can outlaw something and any currently in existence become illegal as well as in the future

and the cruelty laws that the humane soc or Peta would would use doesn't specify sport shooting, they're coming at this under the "catchall provision" and if that holds, how long till PETA files that deer hunting is animal cruelty on the same grounds? do you really think they differentiate between the two like we are? again, precedence...

[thefirstndsecond]

Wow surprising opinions here.

They are not hurting any human. They are not not hurting anyone. They have the choice and you have the choice not to partake.

This is a hunting tradition which goes back years. Just like Turkey shoots.

It was everyone else that stopped these from taking place, not the people involved in them.

Let it be.

Just because you do not like it does not give you to take away this right.

Just like guns, God given right.

[customloaded]

Pigeons are not a game bird. Are not classified by PA except as a Nuisance animal, a rodent, a pest.

This issue is a rural vs city slickers issue. Ask any farmer how much damage pigeons do to their farms. Farm being their employment, money making business. People forget that Farms are a business and spending money for repairs caused by a nuisance critter is frustrating.

What happens to the pigeons? They are ground up and feed to pigs. I think they should be given an award for being green...recycling dead nuisance birds.

Second, as normal in todays media, PA is the only state? Don't think so. There are still other states that hold pigeon shots.

Using this line of ideology that since the other 49 states, Puerto Rico, and Soloman Islands have outlawed live bird shoots, why then are we having so much trouble passing the Castle Doctrine bill? Over 30 states have a Castle Doctrine law!!! Stupid argument meant to inflame city slickers that refuse to even kill ants and spiders...sickening!!!

[YllwFvr]

A group of guys went to a friends house to go grouse/pheasant hunting, I dont remember which they had. But they didnt use the dogs to kick up the birds. They brought 40 caged birds with them. A bunch of guys (perhaps three by the rapid shotgun fire) would get set while someone would release a bird. The dogs just brought them back.

This isnt hunting. The only difference bewteen the pigeons and this is these birds will be eaten. 15 birds lived or died later of wounds.

My own opinion is it doesnt bother me. Id participate in either. Im curious as to whether the people who object to the pigeon shoot would also object to the pheasants. They werent wild, they didnt stand a fighting chance of making it away. The only reason the 15 made it (or not) is the hunters seemed to be terrible shots judging from the 5-10 shots after each release.

Its tradition here in Pa. I say let em do it. Also the ordinance against shooting is lunacy. Its an old gun club. Exempt it.

[Paradigm]

Rats with wings. I don't feel badly when I kill a rat with a trap.