Sunday, January 3, 2010
By Amy Worden
www.philly.com
The decades-long war against pigeon shooting in Pennsylvania is flaring up in courthouses, municipal offices and the state legislature.
The embattled Philadelphia Gun Club - once a posh gathering place for genteel Victorian sportsmen and home to pigeon shoots for more than a century - is turning the tables on a neighbor who has been outspoken in his opposition to the shoots.
Last week the Bucks County Courier reported that the Bensalem club filed suit against the Grupp family and a development company alleging that they interfered with their legally-run pigeon shoots.
A pigeon shoot requires hundreds of pigeons be trapped and transported to the site. There they are stuffed in metal boxes before being catapulted into the air where they are shot at close range. Those that don't die immediately can suffer slow, painful deaths, including - in this case - drowning in the adjacent Delaware River.
The gun club says it's acting within state law. In 2002 local officials told the club the shoots violated the state animal cruelty statute and violated local firearms laws and issued a cease and desist order.
But the shoots started up again in late 2008. Now local officials tell NBC 10 the courts or the Pennsylvania General Assembly need to clarify the cruelty laws in order to stop the shoots.
See a story and video of a Philadelphia Gun Club pigeon shoot from NBC 10 below (warning, the images show wounded and dead animals)
Meanwhile, animal rights activist Steve Hindi says he was assaulted by a gun club member while videotaping a pigeon shoot in Berks County last month.
That same club was the focus of animal cruelty charges filed by two humane organizations. Berks County Humane Society withdrew its charges at the request of Berks County District Attorney John Adams. In the second case, humane officer Johnna Seeton, of the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network, continues her fight to pursue charges against the Pikeville club.
The Pennsylvania Flyers Victory Fund - the pigeon shooters political action committee - gave Adams' $1,000 in campaign contributions in the past 18 months, according to state records.
Animal welfare advocates have successfully shut down two pigeon shoots, the notorious Labor Day shoot at Hegins in Schuylkill County, which ended in 1998 and more recently in Strausstown, Berks County. But they have been unable to convince lawmakers to outlaw pigeon shoots in statewide. The Humane Society of the United States is campaigning for passage a pigeon shoot ban. Two bills (House Bill 1411 and Senate Bill 843) are currently before the General Assembly to ban the practice.
