I’m a woodcock hunter. I keep in practice by shooting pigeons. My son tosses them in the air for me. When I center them with my 12-gauge Ithaca, it feels great to blow them apart.
These are clay pigeons — also knows as “skeet.” For target practice, clay pigeons have lots of advantages over live ones. You don’t have to catch, raise, feed or transport them. And you don’t have to become a pariah for engaging in animal cruelty.
Live pigeon shoots are an old sporting tradition. After one was included in the games of the 1900 Paris Olympics, the negative publicity so astonished and chagrined the Olympic Committee that it hasn’t scheduled another.
England banned live pigeon shoots in 1921, Monaco in 1966, Italy in 1970, Portugal in 2021, Spain in 2023. But they still happen in the U.S.
As recently as last month, 15,000 pigeons, transported from Texas, became targets at Quail Creek Sporting Ranch in Okeechobee. The event was hosted by Jack Link’s Meat Snacks. Pigeons weren’t among the snacks.
How many states permit live pigeon shoots? “No telling,” explains Steve Hindi, President of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), because even in states that outlaw them they happen secretly and with impunity. SHARK got them banned in Illinois and Maryland. And it’s pushing a bill to ban them in Pennsylvania. In Oklahoma, Republican Sen. James Inhofe raised campaign funds with live pigeon shoots. Eventually, SHARK got these changed to fair-chase dove hunts.
“We use drones to legally film pigeon shoots,” says Hindi. Contestants routinely shoot them down. On one day in South Carolina, SHARK lost three. They cost more than $4,000 each.
I’m not a feral pigeon advocate. These invasive aliens from Europe, North Africa and southwestern Asia disrupt native ecosystems. But I hate watching anything suffer. At live pigeon shoots workers (often kids) grab wounded birds, make no effort to dispatch them, then throw them into garbage cans where they take hours or days to die.
Some fair-chase hunters legally shoot and eat feral pigeons. I’m not one of them. I don’t object. I’m just spooked by the diseases and ectoparasites pigeons carry and spread to humans and wildlife — Bird Flu, Psittacosis, Histoplasmosis, Cryptococcosis, E. coli, Salmonellosis, bedbugs, pigeon ticks, and red mites, to mention a few.
Ethical hunters eat what they kill. When my neighbor’s kid shot a skunk his dad made him eat it — a valuable lesson. If you can push past the pathogen/parasite issue, pigeons make fine table fare. But pigeons shot at live pigeon shoots rot in garbage cans or get consumed by avian and mammalian scavengers.
Lead is a neurotoxin. Only two ingested pellets can fatally poison a hawk, eagle or vulture. Lead pellets also poison foxes, coyotes, fishers, bobcats, cougars, badgers, raccoons and opossums. Many pigeons shot at these events fly too far to get collected by workers. Any bird flapping on the ground is a dinner invitation for predators.
Birds poisoned by consuming lead pellets droop their heads, struggle to breathe, and convulse. This from Kay Neumann, director of the Dedham, Iowa-based SOAR (Saving Our Avian Resources): “We have some 800 (living and dead) eagles in our database, about 40% because of lead poisoning. Some gasp for air because their blood can’t carry oxygen, and they die within minutes of arriving.”
I object to live pigeon shoots for what they do to wild birds, wild mammals and feral pigeons. I also object to them for what they do to hunters.
My fellow hunters are their own worst enemies. They caterwaul about anti-hunting sentiment, then generate it. I hear no objections to live pigeon shoots save from the animal wellness/rights groups that so many hunters fear and loathe.
“This debasing activity bears no resemblance to hunting, which involves obtaining a license, honoring ‘fair chase’ principles, and consuming the meat of the animals,” declares Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action.
Well, of course. That should go without saying.
Ted Williams, who has a family home in Boca Grande, is a former information officer of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
