Bucks County pigeon shoot draws heat
By Bill Reed and INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: June 10, 2012
A pigeon is released or catapulted into the air and starts to takes flight. A few yards away, a gun club member quickly aims and fires a shotgun, usually striking the bird.
Some of the hundreds of pigeons released in a typical daylong shoot die instantly. But as many as 70 percent are only wounded, animal-rights activists allege, and dying birds can languish for days.
The result is "an animal-rights vs. sportsmen's-rights issue," said State Rep. Mike Tobash (R., Schuylkill), a defender of the shoots, which are legal in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Gun Club — one of three clubs that stage live shoots — has conducted them since 1877.
Foes such as Heidi Prescott, a senior vice president with the Humane Society of the United States, say the shoots are cruel and should be abolished.
"Pigeon shoots should go the way of dog fighting or cockfights," she said recently. "They're so easily replaced with clay targets. There's no reason to use live animals."
