Posted on 06/25/2008 8:47:07 AM PDT by gallaxyglue
Wimbledon under fire for pigeon cull Jun 24, 1:03 pm EDT
Buzz Up PrintLONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Wimbledon came under fire from animal activists on Tuesday for using marksmen to shoot down dive-bombing pigeons.
The tournament employs two hawks to scare away pigeons who had become a pest swooping down on Centre Court and distracting players in the middle of tense matches.
But the hawks failed to keep the pigeons away from the players’ lawn and the open-air media restaurant so marksmen were called in.
“The hawks are our first line of deterrent, and by and large they do the job,” Wimbledon spokesman Johnny Perkins said.
“But unfortunately there were one or two areas where the hawks didn’t deter the pigeons, so it was deemed necessary to take a harder approach,” he explained.
The marksmen were summoned by Wimbledon as pigeon droppings on the restaurant tables were thought to be a health hazard.
The decision to call in the marksmen was condemned as “cruel and illegal behaviour” by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which complained to the tournament organisers and the police.
“Since the use of marksmen to kill pigeons appears to have been carried out as a first, rather than a last resort, and not out of a concern for public health, but rather because the animals were deemed inconvenient by players, you appear to be in clear violation of the law,” PETA vice-president Bruce Friedrich said.
(Reporting by Paul Majendie, Editing by Clare Lovell)
Pigeons = flying poop-filled rats?
Shoot the birdie?....
In other news....PETA defends pigeon poop at Wimbledon.
PETA took a breather from killing pet dogs to complain about the killing of nuisance birds.
Why is it “cruel and illegal behavior” for a human to kill a nuisance bird on one day but totally fine to have a human-trained hawk do it the previous day? They’re truly loons at PETA. (Pardon the bird pun.)
Dried beans do the trick nicely, I’ve heard though I’ve never seen such. A little messy afterwards, perhaps . . .
It would probably amuse(?) the PETA people to find out that Wimbledon got its start originally not as a locale for tennis competitions, but rather as a site for long-distance rifle-shooting competitions.
Rice is banned in some states at weddings due to the pigeons eating the rice,and the rice expanding, bloating them to death,thereby causing them to fall to their death’s.
Not many people complained at the time,till the pretty Doves started dropping like flies!
By the way,Seagulls LOVE Alka Seltzer.
Rice is banned in some states at weddings due to the pigeons eating the rice,and the rice expanding, bloating them to death,thereby causing them to fall to their death’s.
Drat. I was going to suggest feeding the pigeons rice then making a nice meal of pigeon rice for the PETA pigeon people.
Thank you. Want me to report back if it works.
Their reasoning was,the rice expands and therefore bloats them causing the birds to have serious gas problems,leading to misfortune.As the rice expands,so do the happy birds.
Similar to feeding sea gulls alka seltzer.
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