Pigeon shoot stirs up a controversy

January 1991

The Herald-News (Joliet, IL)

By John Pletz

A suburban animal rights activist has thrown down the gauntlet of challenge to about 20 people who participated in a live pigeon shoot about 20 miles southwest of Joliet.

Steve Hindi of Plano in Kendall County sent a letter to the property owner and the man who organized the shoot, challenging them to a "war game" against the activists using air guns and pain pellets.

The local pigeon shoot was the second of what organizer John McSweeney hopes will become an annual event.

About 20 shooters, mostly from the Chicagoland area, paid an undisclosed fee to fire at 600 live birds rather than ones made of clay. The event was held Dec. 16 near Carpy's Bait Shot at Blodgett and Kelly Roads near Heideke Lake.

The practice, which has been going on throughout the country for decades, is legal in Illinois. The Department of Conservation issues about 20 permits each year to people who want to have pigeon shoots, said Terry Musser, the agency's program director for controlled hunting and field trials.

"The practice goes back many, many decades," he said. "The permit is provided by the department for free by law. We've had virtually no complaints about pigeon shoots."

McSweeney said he had no plans to pick up Hindi's gauntlet.

"I talked to (Hindi) once, and I don't care to talk to him anymore," he said. "It's all legal. The people who come are trap and skeet shooters who want to shoot live birds."

Hindi vowed that McSweeney will not be able to ignore him or a grass-roots campaign of adverse publicity.

"They can either deal with us now, or when fishing season starts and he's looking for people to come in, we'll have people telling them that he holds these pigeon shoots," he said. "I may well be on a Chicago radio station this Saturday night talking about pigeon shoots, and the only one I know about is Carpy's."

McSweeney said the live shoots are held frequently by different people and groups all over the country. He said shoots are held annually in Peoria and Frankfort, as well as several in Wisconsin.

The Department of Conservation declined to disclose names or locations of people who are issued permits.

MsSweeney said the pigeons are trapped and then sold to people who want to shoot them.

"The birds are trapped out of the wild," he said. "Cities like Chicago pay thousands and thousands of dollars to get rid of pigeons which carry disease and destroy buildings."

"If it's a question of what is more humane, what's better? To poison them and let them die slowly, or shoot them?

Hindi, who videotaped the event, claims that some of the birds were not dead after being shot. He said the birds were then thrown into barrels with dead birds, which he says is illegal.

A Conservation Department officer, who was required to witness the event, found no violations, said Capt. Howard Brewer of the agency's Spring Grove office.

"They were in compliance with all the laws," he said. "There aren't a lot of laws governing it."

Nevertheless, Hindi plans to keep up the fight.

"We have a person going out to check each Saturday and Sunday watching for a shoot," he said. "There will be encumbrances from animal protesters if they try to hold another shoot. Until they assure me somehow that they will not continue to do this, we will be there in numbers."