“Although the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rightfully termed these shoots ‘cruel and moronic’ and allowed humane officers to prosecute participants for animal cruelty, this narrow procedural ruling did not stop live pigeon shoots,” says Prescott. The Humane Society, she says, “has tried in court to apply the cruelty law to shoots, but without success so far.”
Pallone says the bill, now with 51 co-sponsors, one-fourth of the House membership, an abnormally large number of co-sponsors for any piece of legislation, “is not a legislative priority.” Rep. William DeWeese (D-Waynesburg), majority floor leader, sets the legislative priority. According to insiders in the House, DeWeese, like Pallone, vigorously opposes legislation to ban the state’s pigeon shoots. Pallone claims that “it couldn’t be any further from the truth” that DeWeese is blocking the bill from coming to the floor and has influenced the subcommittee. DeWeese, who has been in the House 32 years, twice before voted against bills that would ban pigeon shoots.
Records filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State reveal that DeWeese’s campaign committees have accepted significant political contributions from organizations that oppose the ban on pigeon shooting. State records reveal that his committee has received $750 from the Flyers Victory Fund, the political action arm of the Pennsylvania Flyers Association, an organization of about 300 members who are dedicated to promoting live pigeon shoots. His campaign committees the past four years, according to Department of State records, have also received $6,500 in contributions from the NRA Political Victory Fund. When Sen. Roy Afflerbach first introduced an amendment in 1998 to ban pigeon shooting, only about five senators supported it but, says Afllerbach, “the Senate has come a long way since then.” A poll of Senate committee members, conducted in February and March, revealed a majority of committee members, including both the committee chair and minority chair, support the bill. An informal and confidential poll of House committee members in March revealed that 14 of the 29-member House committee would probably vote for the bill; nine were undecided and only six were firmly opposed.
“It does not require any courage to shoot a pigeon launched from a box, and it shouldn’t require much more for a legislator to decree that it is wrong to do so,” says Prescott, who is acknowledged even by opponents as one of the most effective lobbyists in the state capitol. But, Prescott is facing a formidable opponent.
“Banning pigeon shoots would be a first step in advancing [the] agenda [of animal rights activists], and they won’t stop there,” wails an alarmist message on the NRA website. “It’s the first step in an agenda that would prohibit all hunting,” NRA spokesperson Rachel Parsons told the Pittsburgh City Paper in February.
“That’s a ridiculous argument, and nothing less than a scare tactic,” says Karel Minor, executive director of the Humane Society of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Roy Afflerbach, who grew up on a farm, says he hunted “from the time I was old enough to walk into the field.” He says, “We grew up with a reverence for life, and never shot anything that we couldn’t eat, that gave us sustenance for life.” Opposing pigeon shoots “is not a firearms or hunting issue, but an issue of violence and animal cruelty, the mass killing of animals and birds solely to award prizes,” says Afflerbach, now president of the Afflerbach Group after serving four years in the state House of Representatives, 12 years as a senator, and as Allentown mayor.
“Only the most extremist hunters would defend launching, shooting, and then dumping animals into a trash bag as hunting or as a sport,” says Heidi Prescott. Jerry Feaser, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, agrees. Pigeon shoots, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “are not what we would classify as fair-chase hunting.” Rep. Shimkus told the Scranton Times-Tribune, “I do not support gun control,” and vowed to “never allow this bill to go forward if it had to do with gun control.” The bill specifically excludes legitimate hunting activities.
Karel Minor says his organization became involved “because reasonable hunters,” including those on his board of directors, “deem pigeon shooting is so far out of the mainstream.” Reasonable hunters, he says, realize that “it’s cruelty in order to make money from shooting animals that are catapulted.” If Pennsylvania hunters are really worried, says Heidi Prescott, “they can look at other big hunting states—like New York, Texas, Montana, West Virginia, and Michigan.” These states, says Prescott, “have outlawed captive bird shooting, but hunting continues unaffected.”
While the NRA is expending considerable time and resources to block the bills, most of the state’s sportsmen’s organizations, says Afflerbach, “recognize that this ‘sport’ is indefensible.” The 4,000-member Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania (USP) has not devoted resources to trying to quash the bills; only a one-line notice in a list of bills USP opposes indicates that organization opposes the ban on pigeon shoots.
There were about two dozen shoots during the past year at the Pikeville Gun Club, Strausstown Gun Club and Wing Pointe in Berks County, as well as one at Valley View in Schuylkill County and Erdman in Dauphin County. At each shoot, more than 1,000 pigeons are killed and thrown away.
Dave Comroe no longer goes to pigeon shoots. “It’s not too exciting for me,” he says. “It’s not something I’m interested in. It’s not my thing,” he says. His “thing” is competitive trapshooting. Comroe now kills inanimate clay pigeons made of tar and pitch, hitting about 96 percent from the 16 yard line, occasionally busting a perfect 100 to earn championships.
Heidi Prescott and the 11.6 million members of the Humane Society, about 7.3 million more than the NRA, wish the few hundred Pennsylvanians who are active pigeon shooters would follow Comroe’s example and stop participating in the cruelty of pigeon shoots—either voluntarily or by force of law.
[Dr. Brasch attended and reported on five pigeon shoots. An award-winning syndicated columnist, he is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University and president of the Pennsylvania Press Club. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (November 2007), available through amazon.com and other bookstores. You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or through his website at: www.walterbrasch.com.]
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