June 11, 2012
BCTV.org
We have just been forwarded an unverified notice that the local private sporting club, Wing Pointe, will be hosting another pigeon shoot this Thursday, June 14.
Wing Pointe is a private, for-profit company in Perry Township, Berks County. They've decided that a good way to make money is to invite shooters, many from out of state, who have brought more than their money with them.
They've brought violence and also out-of-state protestors who have come to Pennsylvania and Berks to protest us as a haven of pigeon shooting.
The last two genuine local-membership sporting clubs to hold shoots, Pike and Strausstown, decided that shoots were no longer the way to go and discontinued them.
As a Berks County based organization, the humane society knows that our community has a tradition of hunting, angling and agriculture. We know that these traditions go back to the founding of Berks County and that these activities are protected by law.
We're about animal welfare and we don't generally take positions on issues that don't impact companion animals. It's one of the reasons we have such strong support from the sportsmen in our community when some other groups do not.
But we have taken a position against pigeon shoots because we, along with many others, have determined they are, in fact, currently illegal under Pennsylvania cruelty and game law.
Because of that, we feel we must speak out against these unlawful (not to mention unsporting) shoots until they end or are legalized. We know lots of people run around saying the shoots are legal and have for years. The fact that police and district attorneys in various counties, some with close connections to shooting groups, don't prosecute or even block prosecutions by Humane Society police officers, doesn't mean they aren't a crime. They can say what they want. The reality is they can't point to the law that says shoots are legal. We can point to where it says they aren't.
The Pennsylvania anti-cruelty law 5511 says a person commits an offense if he wantonly or cruelly ill-treats, overloads, beats, otherwise abuses any animal, or neglects any animal as to which he has a duty of care, whether belonging to himself or otherwise.
Trapping, transporting, feeding and watering, then selling the birds to out-of-state shooters to launch from a trap and shoot by the hundred reasonably qualifies as ill-treatment. The law says "any animal," and that includes pigeons. That’s certainly enough to bring charges before a judge.
We know the law also provides specific exclusions for things like pest control activities. But these shoots are not exempt because the pigeons are trapped and shipped in, not from local pest control.
They exclude normal agricultural practice. But these shoots are not exempt because Wing Point is not a farm.
They exclude self-defense killing. We'd love to hear that excuse. And the law exempts lawful hunting under the game code. Here, too, the shoots are not exempt.
Under Pennsylvania Game Code and promulgated regulations there is no season for pigeons, and they are not included on the lengthy list of animals which may be lawfully hunted.
In fact, the regulations clearly state that there is no open season on other wild birds or mammals, unless Wing Pointe is claiming these aren't wild or game animals, in which case there would be no protection under the game code at all.
But Wing Pointe doesn't operate a true hunting club. They operate a game release club or regulated hunting grounds. Maybe it's OK to release and shoot pigeons there?
Pennsylvania law is equally clear about the rules for game-bird releases: The game code, 34 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2928(a), allows that releases and shoots at "regulated hunting grounds require a minimum of 100 acres of land, or land and water combined, on which the permittee must release one of the following species of domestically produced game birds: namely, ringneck pheasants, bobwhite quail or mallard ducks. Any of the listed species and chukar partridges may be released only if they are listed on the permit application and propagated by the permittee or received from a legal source."
Not pigeons. There is no game code protection.
This Thursday, Wing Pointe is reported to be hosting a pigeon shoot which appears to be in direct violation of both Pennsylvania anti-cruelty law and Pennsylvania game law. Why does this continue to be allowed?
More than a few legislators, who won't speak out openly against these shoots, but say behind closed doors they find them distasteful and unsporting, also say they wish the community would stand up against the shoots.
That's what the sporting community did in Strausstown and Pike. As long as criminal charges continue to be blocked by elected officials, it's all we can do here.
You can do something right now to help end these shoots. Call Pennsylvania Game Commission SE Regional Director Doug Killough at 610-926-3136 and report a game release activity in violation of PA game law (illegal release of animals at a regulated hunting ground).
Ask to be shown the portion of the game code that permits these shoots to be held if the game commission representative tells you they are legal, and politely demand action if they can't.
Then call your local legislators in the Pennsylvania House and Senate and ask them to co-sponsor pigeon shoot ban legislation which would make it explicit and crystal clear that these shoots are a violation of law, so that no DA can ever claim otherwise.
If you don't have a problem with the shoots, you should do the same except ask them to include pigeon shoots in the protected and exempted category of the game code.
The humane society has no desire to court controversy for its own sake. This is not about animal rights, gun rights, tradition, or whether pigeons are rats with wings, it's about what constitutes legal cruelty.
The humane society opposes these shoots because we believe them to be illegal, not because they are distasteful. If we objected to the merely distasteful, we'd be asking you to call MTV and protest Teen Mom. Believe us, we'd love to be focusing on other things.
Let's put an end to this entire debate once and for all. You don't have to like pigeons. You don't have to be opposed to hunting. You just have to believe that the rule of law still means something in Pennsylvania. Your calls today, your community action, can help to do that.
The Humane Society of Berks County's animal welfare centers (Reading, Douglassville and Exeter) serve all of Berks County and surrounding communities, providing shelter and veterinary and other services to tens of thousands of animals and their people each year. It is a nationally recognized, award-winning, private, nonprofit organization funded through donations and service fees. In addition to enforcing Pennsylvania's animal cruelty laws, the Humane Society offers adoption services, veterinary services, low-cost spay and neuter services, humane education, pet behavioral counseling, and help to stray, injured and mistreated animals.
