Pigeon hunts need to be put out to pasture | Opinion

England banned live pigeon shoots in 1921. Spain, where they still have bullfighting, banned the practice last year. And yet, it still goes on in the U.S. Lifelong hunter Ted Williams writes that his fellow sportsmen can be their own worst enemies when they defend practices such as this.

I’m a woodcock hunter. I keep in practice by shooting pigeons. My son tosses them in the air for me. I miss most that fly directly over my head. But when I center one with my 12-gauge Ithaca, it feels great to blow it apart.

These are clay pigeons — aka “skeet.” For target practice, clay pigeons have lots of advantages over live ones. You don’t have to catch, raise or feed them. You don’t have to transport them long distances. And you don’t have to become a pariah for engaging in animal cruelty.

Live pigeon shoots are an old sporting tradition. After one was included in the games of the 1900 Paris Olympics, the negative publicity so astonished and chagrined the Olympic Committee that it hasn’t scheduled another.

England banned live pigeon shoots in 1921, Monaco in 1966, Italy in 1970, Portugal in 2021 and Spain in 2023. But they still happen in the U.S.

As recently as Feb. 24-26, 2024, 1,500 pigeons, transported from Texas, became targets at Quail Creek Sporting Ranch in Okeechobee, Florida. The event was hosted by Jack Link’s Meat Snacks. Pigeons weren’t among the snacks.

How many states permit live pigeon shoots? There’s no telling, explains Steve Hindi, president of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), because not that many states outlaw them, and they happen with impunity in some of those states anyway. SHARK got them banned in Illinois and Maryland. And it’s pushing a bill to ban them in Pennsylvania. In Oklahoma, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe raised campaign funds with live pigeon shoots. Eventually, SHARK got these changed to fair-chase dove hunts.

A contestant in one of Inhofe’s pigeon fundraisers shot and destroyed a $4,000 drone SHARK legally used for filming. “We’ve lost many drones at the hands of pigeon shooters,” says Hindi. “We had three shot down in one day at the Broxton Bridge Plantation in South Carolina.”

I’m not a feral pigeon advocate. These invasive aliens from Europe, North Africa and southwestern Asia disrupt native ecosystems. But I hate watching anything suffer. At live pigeon shoots, workers (often kids) pick up wounded birds, make no effort to dispatch them, then toss them into garbage cans where they take hours or days to die.

Some fair-chase hunters legally shoot and eat feral pigeons. I’m not one of them. I don’t object. I’m just spooked by the diseases and ectoparasites pigeons carry and spread to humans and wildlife — bird flu, psittacosis, histoplasmosis, cryptococcosis, e. coli, salmonellosis, bedbugs, pigeon ticks and red mites, to mention a few.

I was taught that you eat what you kill. A neighbor kid shot a skunk, and his dad made him eat it — a valuable lesson. If you can push past the pathogen/parasite issue, pigeons make fine table fare. But pigeons shot at live pigeon shoots rot in garbage cans or get consumed by avian and mammalian scavengers.

And that just leads to more problems. Lead is a neurotoxin. Only two ingested pellets can fatally poison a hawk, eagle or vulture. Lead pellets even poison foxes, coyotes, fishers, bobcats, cougars, badgers, raccoons and opossums. Most pigeons shot at these events don’t die quickly, and many fly too far to get collected by workers. Any bird flapping on the ground is a dinner invitation for predators.

Birds poisoned by consuming lead pellets droop their heads, struggle to breathe and convulse. “We have some 800 [living and dead] eagles in our database; about 40% because of lead poisoning,” says Key Neumann, director of the Dedham, Iowa-based Saving Our Avian Resources. “Some gasp for air because their blood can’t carry oxygen, and they die within minutes of arriving.”

I object to live pigeon shoots for what they do to wild birds, wild mammals and feral pigeons. I also object to them for what they do to hunters.

My fellow hunters are their own worst enemies. They caterwaul about anti-hunting sentiment, and then they generate it. I hear no objections to live pigeon shoots save from the animal wellness/rights groups that so many hunters fear and loathe.

“This debasing activity bears no resemblance to hunting, which involves obtaining a license, honoring ‘fair chase’ principles, and consuming the meat of the animals,” declares Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. Well, of course. That should go without saying.

Ted Williams, a lifelong hunter, writes about fish and wildlife. He is a former information officer of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and now lives in Boca Grande.