Pigeon shoot’s fate sealed:
So if folks in Hegins can’t find a humane alternative, the state should
May 25, 1993
The Patriot-News
Editorial Board Staff: C. Herbert Field, Jr. editorial writer; Wiley R. McKellar, III, editorial writer, Op-Ed editor, John M. Goodrich, III, copy editor. Also on the Editorial Board: Deanna S. B. Mills, librarian
Put together 12,000 spectators, 1,300 protesters, 750 town folks, 265 state troopers and 6,000 pigeons, and you have one of the most bizarre rituals in America; the annual Labor Day pigeon shoot at Hegins.
This is a ritual that continues to flirt with tragedy, as “self-righteous tofu eaters,” as one of our letter writers described the protesters, take on “the cruelest event in the country,” according to an animal-rights activist.
Wiser heads in the community, it seems to us, should be seeking to put an end to this cruel and barbaric event before its dangerous mix of guns, alcohol and angry works erupts into violence. There is no indication, however, that organizers plan to cancel the 60th edition of the Fred Coleman Memorial Shoot or at least terminate the pigeon slaughter portion of the program for 1993.
By one means or another, the pigeon shoot is doomed. It is an anachronism from another age when blood sports were common and there was little compassion for the animals victimized by such events. Dog fights and cockfights have been banished by legal statute, but pigeon shoots continue to be legal events in Hegins and elsewhere – to growing public disgust.
More than once in this apace we have defended the right of the people of Hegins to be left alone to pursue a “sport” we personally find repugnant and indefensible. We recognized at the same time that there is more than a little hypocrisy among those who travel great distances to rural Schuylkill County to preach kindness by hurling insults at those they disagree with and who manage to ignore far more grievous assaults to the conscience present in their own communities.
Nevertheless, we have reluctantly concluded that the time has come for legislative action to ban live bird shoots in Pennsylvania, to put an end to this needless and shameful cruelty to animals. State Rep. George Saurman, R-Montgomery, has introduced H.B. 1415 that would do just that, legislation the should be approved in time to block this year’s Hegins shoot.
It would have been better if Hegins had bowed out of the shoot of its own volition, in its own way, in its own time. But it chose not to.
Now it’s up to the Legislature to stop the violence against pigeons and the potential violence among humans that the event increasingly risks.
