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Is burying pigeons alive legal in Pennsylvania?

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(Beth Clifton collage)

Showing Animals Respect & Kindness video tests exemption for “shooting activities” in new anti-cruelty law

         HAMBURG,  Pennsylvania––Drone video obtained by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK) both during and after a November 9,  2017 pigeon shoot at the Wing Pointe gun club in Hamburg,   Pennsylvania,  shows adult “trapper boys” not only dumping wounded pigeons alive into a barrel,  but also burying many pigeons alive with a tractor shovel.

The SHARK video,  posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_EZGRlhzE,  depicts these and other actions which clearly would have been illegal before the Pennsylvania anti-cruelty law was updated by HB 1238,  dubbed “Libre’s Law,”  in June 2017.

(From SHARK video)

May no longer be prosecutable

Burying wounded pigeons alive and otherwise unnecessarily harming them before dispatch might no longer be prosecutable,  however,  due to language added to the law by state representative Todd Stephens,  a Republican from Montgomery County.

HB 1238,  including an apparent blanket exemption for pigeon shoots,  called “Shooting activities not otherwise prohibited under this subchapter,”  was strongly endorsed by both the Humane Society of the U.S. and Humane Pennsylvania,  a federation representing local humane societies.

(See Did HSUS & Humane Pennsylvania sacrifice pigeons to NRA demand?)

Wing Pointe crew buries pigeons, many still alive.
(From SHARK video.)

Acts held to be illegal under the old law

         Ruling on July 21,  1999 for Pennsylvania SPCA humane investigator Clinton Hulzinger,  against the Labor Day Committee in Hegins,  Pennsylvania,  which held an annual pigeon shoot from 1935 through 1998,  the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that during those shoots “the trapper boys retrieve the wounded pigeons from the circled area and kill them by a variety of methods.  These include tearing the birds’ heads from their bodies,  throwing or smashing them against objects on the ground,  crushing the birds by falling on them,  and suffocating the birds by tossing them into a barrel filled with other dead and dying pigeons.  All of these methods are contrary to accepted veterinary methods of euthanasia and cause the birds additional pain and suffering.”

Steve Hindi & Stu Chaifetz of SHARK with pigeons rescued from a Pennsylvania pigeon shoot.  (SHARK photo)

Said SHARK founder Steve Hindi,  who has campaigned against pigeon shoots in Pennsylvania since 1991,  and won a ruling that stopped pigeon shoots in Illinois in 1992,  “It is heartbreaking to see these innocent animals being tortured and mercilessly killed.  What we filmed is not only evidence of criminal behavior, but it is a clarion call for legislation to finally be passed in Pennsylvania to ban pigeon shoots forever.  That is why we are calling on Governor Tom Wolf to take action now.”

Live pigeon in barrel at Wing Pointe shoot on November 9, 2017.  (SHARK image)

NRA called the shots

Neither Wolf nor the Pennsylvania legislature,  however,  are likely to revisit Pennsylvania humane law soon,  after a multi-year political fight over HB 1238,  which passed only after Stephens,  who holds an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association,  produced a revision meeting NRA demands.

Dead & alive pigeons after Wing Pointe shoot of November 9, 2017.
(From SHARK video)

“As I understand it,  the NRA insisted on language that they believed — and I’m not sure I agree with them — would have affected live pigeon shoots in Pennsylvania,”  Pennsylvania House Rules Committee member Mike Sturla told Lancaster Online staff writer Tom Knapp on October 27,  2016.

Despite the language exemption “shooting activities not otherwise prohibited under this subchapter” from prosecution under the updated Pennsylvania anti-cruelty law,  Stephens insisted to ANIMALS 24-7 that,  “This bill was not intended to,  nor did it,  change the state of the law in PA on pigeon shoots.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Humane Pennsylvania defends the new law

Humane Pennsylvania president Karel Minor told ANIMALS 24-7 that “Since pigeon shoots have been widely––if incorrectly––considered to be allowable and requiring a legislative remedy to bring them to an end,  opposing a bill which contained so many long time desired goals because it excluded pigeon shoots was not a decision we felt prudent.”

Libre’s Law,  however,  might potentially have affected an average of 13 prosecutions per year in Pennsylvania since 2007––about the same as the number of living pigeons that the Wing Pointe video shows being thrown alive into a barrel and/or being buried alive at just one of many pigeon shoots held each year.

“Since the existing law has not been successfully used to prosecute a shoot,”  Minor added,  “this exemption is not standing in the way of successful prosecutions,  since none are occurring.  In the counties where shoots occur,  District Attorneys have actively quashed prosecutions on any grounds,  including in Berks County by Humane Pennsylvania,  regardless of current law.”

However,  Minor finished,  “Our organization continues to believe pigeon shoots to be illegal under current law.”

Janet Enoch & Steve Hindi of SHARK among friends.
(Beth Clifton collage)

SHARK seeks prosecution

Agreed Humane Society of the U.S. senior director of campaigns Heidi Prescott,  through publicist Anna West,  the amended anti-cruelty law “maintains the current status quo on pigeon shoots.”

Seizing the opportunity to take Stephens,  Minor,  and Prescott at their words,  and to test “Libre’s Law” in court,  “SHARK has sent the video to an investigator from the Animal Rescue league of Berks County,”  said Hindi.  “All those involved, including the owner of Wing Pointe, must be charged with animal cruelty.

“There is a legal precedent for holding workers at a pigeon shoot accountable under the law for committing cruelty against pigeons,”  Hindi continued.  “This derives from charges brought against a worker whom SHARK filmed torturing pigeons at the Philadelphia Gun Club,  located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,  on January 30, 2016.  In this instance, the worker pleaded guilty to charges of animal cruelty.”

Wing Pointe owner Joseph Solana attends a pigeon shoot.
(SHARK photo)

Longtime targets

SHARK has sought to press cruelty charges against Wing Pointe since retrieving 21 wounded but living pigeons from a “dead pile” after a pigeon shoot on December 5,  2010.

Just short of a month later,  on January 2,  2011,  a SHARK drone that was videotaping another Wing Pointe pigeon shoot “suddenly crashed into the trees,”  recounted SHARK spokesperson Stuart Chaifetz.  “SHARK personnel suspected that the aircraft had been shot down.  Video transmitted from the aircraft,  along with ground cameras,  show that the aircraft was shot at least twice,”  Chaifetz said.

Posted to YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bp9coXCEjE,  the video records four suspected rifle shots,  the second and fourth of which appeared to hit the drone,  12 seconds and 1 minute,  30 seconds into the video,  respectively.

Background: Robert Olsen points gun at Steve Hindi (foreground.)  (SHARK image)

D.A. did not accept charges

But the downed drone was never recovered from the tree on Wing Pointe property where it became snagged.  The Pennsylvania State Police and Berks County district attorney John Adams refused to accept charges against Wing Pointe owner Joseph Solana and his employees,  either in connection with the treatment of wounded pigeons or with the drone shoot-down.

“Adams has received campaign donations from pigeon shooters,”   Chaifetz noted.
Wing Pointe is among the last locations in Pennsylvania that still host pigeon shoots.

Wing Pointe owner Joseph Solana also owns Carlton Pools.  Hindi anticipated felony charges against Carlton Pools operations manager Robert Olsen,  61, of  Warminster,
Pennsylvania,  after Olsen on February 22, 2011 allegedly tried to physically obstruct SHARK member Janet Enoch from videotaping him in the act of accosting Hindi after a demonstration against pigeon shooting.

Bucks County district attorney David Heckler.

Summary citations

However, after Hindi and Enoch called the Warminster police, only Enoch’s video camera was known to have been impounded as evidence, along with Hindi’s laptop computer.  The video camera and laptop were held for 12 days.  After they were returned to Enoch and Hindi, SHARK posted the video to YouTube,  where it remains visible at either https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqP8Yg4w5ts or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0NS1NDVbfI.

Instead of filing criminal charges,  Warminster Township issued four summary citations against Hindi, two against Enoch, and two against Olsen,  each having about the same legal weight as a parking ticket. Each person was fined $44.00.

Merritt & Beth Clifton

“District Attorney David Heckler,”  who handled that case,  “has a history of protecting pigeon shooters,” alleged SHARK spokesperson Stuart Chaifetz at the time.  “He has repeatedly ignored offenses including animal cruelty,  shooters covering their license plates,  shooters using their vehicles to threaten and intimidate,  and weapons being knowingly discharged in the direction of protesters, in some cases hitting them.”

Heckler retired in 2016,  but John Adams remains a Berks county district attorney.

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Comments

  1. Steve Hindi says

    There is one extremely positive aspect of this story that has been untold, although it is not the fault of Mr. Clifton. SHARK hasn’t focused on the fact that pigeon shoots at Wing Pointe and other locations in Pennsylvania once attracted well over a hundred people, or that all of Wing Pointe’s three shoot rings were once used from early morning into the evening, because our focus has been on the cruelty. The most recent Wing Pointe shoot only used one ring, lasted only about four hours, and apparently indulged the bloodlust of less than ten participants. Similar reductions are commonplace at other locations such as the equally infamous Philadelphia Gun Club.

    Such an enormous reduction is entirely due to the pressure applied by SHARK’s relentless documentation efforts, and have occurred in spite of the utter betrayal of the Humane Society of the United States and the Federated Humane Societies of Pennsylvania. SHARK investigators are witnessing firsthand the slow strangulation of pigeon shoots, as fewer and fewer of the gun-toting psychopaths are willing to expose themselves to our cameras. This is the same process we witnessed in Oklahoma, where Senator Jim Inhofe’s live pigeon shoot fundraisers dwindled down year after year, until this year there was no pigeon shoot at all.

    It must be noted that Inhofe is supremely powerful in Oklahoma, so the victory over his pigeon slaughter occurred without any assistance from local, county or state police. Even more disturbing is that in both Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, there was absolutely no participation from the Humane Society of the United States, PETA, or any other national organization.

    Interestingly, leaders in HSUS and PETA built a good part of their reputations being arrested at the infamous Hegins pigeon shoot in Pennsylvania decades ago. Large conferences and protests were put on by the Fund for Animals (now part of HSUS) dedicated to ending pigeon shoots. The same people who pledged themselves to ending pigeon shoots then, either ignore the issue today or in the case of HSUS, have thrown the pigeons under the bus so that they can claim a “victory” in passing Libre’s Law – the very instrument of the birds’ betrayal.

    Live pigeon shoots are a study in organizations that deal with issues for financial gain, versus those who do it for the animals. SHARK has had the honor of working with grassroots activists from various states, in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and earlier in Illinois, where we also knocked out pigeon shoots. While the big groups count their money, it is grassroots activists who are making change.

    Those who continue to support the big groups, and fundraising ploys like the Federated Humane Societies of Pennsylvania, are enabling and encouraging lazy, incompetent, profiteering bureaucrats, whose money-making schemes pull on the emotional heartstrings of caring people, but do little to nothing for animals, and in some cases, even outright betray them.

  2. Karen Davis says

    Having attended the Hegins, Pennsylvania annual Labor Day pigeon shoots for several years in the early 1990s and before, I saw first-hand how sadistic and evil they are. One year I released 12 pigeons from their crate as they were about to be shot. I applaud SHARK and Steve Hindi for their tireless effort to eliminate these horrific pigeon shoots. I don’t understand why the Humane Society of the United States and the Federated Humane Society of Pennsylvania are not supporting SHARK’s campaign to force Pennsylvania to outlaw them under the state anticruelty statute.
    It’s strange to me that HSUS has apparently abandoned the Fund For Animals’ vigorous campaign, run at the time by Heidi Prescott, who now works for HSUS as a result of the Fund for Animals’ disappearance into HSUS in the mid-2000s. It’s so sickening.

    Karen Davis, President, United Poultry Concerns http://www.upc-online.org

  3. Emily Patterson-Kane, PhD. says

    For the purposes of the AVMA Guidelines on the Euthanasia of Animals, domesticated pigeons would be considered poultry and wild pigeons would be considered avians or wildlife. In each of these cases decapitation must be accomplished with a sharp blade (knife or guillotine):

    Specifically: “Decapitation-Decapitation is acceptable with conditions for the euthanasia of poultry when performed by competent personnel. Decapitation should be executed with a sharp instrument, ensuring rapid and unobstructed severing of the head from the neck. Use of a bleeding cone may facilitate restraint.” (pg. 63)

    As such, decapitation by tearing or pulling is not in compliance with these standards as rapid exsanguination may not occur and birds may experience conscious suffering.

    The full document can be found online at: https://www.avma.org/KB/Policies/Documents/euthanasia.pdf

    Regards

    Emily

    Emily Patterson-Kane, PhD
    Animal Welfare Scientist | Animal Welfare Division
    American Veterinary Medical Association

    o: 847.285.6746
    http://www.avma.org

  4. Jamaka Petzak says

    My blood runs cold imagining the suffering of these innocent living beings whose lives are sacrificed for NOTHING and held of no account by their killers. I actually know someone who participates in these kinds of activities — I have never engaged him in conversation about it, because his mindset is so different from mine not only on this but on many other subjects. I cannot understand how any positive feeling could be derived from such an activity. In the past, I have tried to rescue pigeons who have been injured by unknown means. Unfortunately I have not been successful, but I will always try to help an innocent being in need, to the best of my ability. From that, I do derive pleasure, knowing I have done what I can to help someone who means me absolutely no harm.