Live Pigeon Shoots No Longer Legal, Says State Attorney General

September 22, 1992

The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

Kevin McDermott
Staff Writer

The controversial practice of shooting caged pigeons for sport, which sparked an animal-rights confrontation near Peoria last year, no longer is legal in Illinois, the attorney general's office said in an informal opinion issued last week.

"On several points of law, it shuts them down," said Steve Hindi, a Chicago-area businessman and activist who led a statewide crusade against "live pigeon shoots" last year. "They better not try it now, or we'll have them arrested."

The pigeon shoots are organized events in which people pay entry fees and compete for prizes by shooting live pigeons as the birds are catapulted out of small cages. Although one state law prohibits killing captured animals for entertainment, another made an exception for some events, including pigeon shoots.

That exception, which allowed the state's Department of Conservation to offer free licenses for organized pigeon shoots, was repealed in December.

In a letter last week, the attorney general's office said that change apparently means pigeon shoots now fall under the Humane Care for Animals Act. That act prohibits owning animals with the "intended use" of killing them for "sport, wagering, or entertainment."

The letter was in response to a query from Will County officials, who wanted to know whether they could legally stop a local pigeon shoot. Attorney general's spokesman Ernie Slottag stressed that the letter doesn't constitute an official legal opinion by the attorney general's office, but that the act is clear on the subject.

"There is a portion of the act that (says) you can't raise animals just to kill them," said Slottag.

That portion of the act doesn't affect traditional hunting or pest control, he said, since the key factor is whether an animal was raised, bought or captured specifically so it could be killed for entertainment.

"It appears that a pigeon shoot of this type would constitute a `show, exhibition, program or other activity' which involves the intentional killing of animals for sport and entertainment," states the letter from the attorney general's office. "It appears that pigeon shoots conducted in the manner you have described are now prohibited . . ." Hindi has traveled around the country protesting pigeon shoots, and was once arrested during a confrontation in Pennsylvania, home of the nation's largest annual shoot.

In April of last year, Hindi and about 40 other protesters picketed at the edge of Donald Holford's property north of Canton as one of the Illinois' largest pigeon shoots was in progress. Hindi also lobbied state legislators to outlaw the practice, and has frequently held press conferences to focus attention on it.

Holford -- who hosted his annual shoot for 13 years -- couldn't be reached for comment Monday. A woman who answered the phone at his home said the family wasn't aware of the attorney general's letter, but that Holford hadn't planned to conduct more shoots, anyway.

"We just haven't done it anymore," said the woman, who declined to give her name. She said the protests last year were "a little bit" of the reason.

Hindi said he will contact state's attorneys and sheriffs throughout the state "to make sure they know this is illegal now."