BB gun used to kill pigeon at city store
By GARY DENNIS
Union Leader Staff
MANCHESTER — A local woman involved in animal rescue said workers at a Manchester grocery store shot and killed a trespassing pigeon yesterday with a BB gun rather than let her trap and release it.
But Jim Prive, vice president and general manager of the Vista Foods store at Wilson and Valley streets, said his employees were just taking care of a health issue.
“We can’t have a bird flying around in a grocery store,” Prive said. “This was usual and customary . . . You go in with a BB gun, usually after hours, and take care of the problem.”
But Lori McMillan-Dunn, an Elm Street resident who said the presence of a pigeon inside the store was brought to her attention by a daughter who works at the Dunkin’ Donuts concession inside the Vista store, said the Audubon Society was on its way with traps that wouldn’t harm the bird.
“You throw some corn in there, catch it and release it somewhere else,” she said.
No deal, Prive said. “You can’t trap birds,” he said.
Dunn takes the extermination of the lone bird to heart. She rehabilitates animals in her home. Cats, dogs, birds and other creatures have been nurtured there, she says. Her family, including 18-year-old daughter Cassandra, has helped her.
And she says she makes regular donations to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other animal rights organizations.
That explains why Dunn’s daughter, who was working in the Dunkin’ Donuts yesterday morning, was so disturbed as she watched Vista employees work to take care of the bird problem. Hours later, she was still crying as she waited on a long line of customers at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter.
And while a city health official says he doesn’t encourage the shooting of pests in stores, he said Vista employees did what they had to do.
“This was an imminent health hazard,” said Tim Soucy, chief of environmental health for the city of Manchester. “A bird flying around a grocery store really poses a problem. And they took action to eliminate it.”
Soucy went as far to say shooting the pigeon with a BB gun in this instance was “necessary.”
“You can’t have a bird that could be pecking at bags of food or leaving droppings on exposed produce,” he said.
Prive said it isn’t as if he has no feelings for animals that may get stuck in grocery stores. In a Laconia Vista store he oversees, a squirrel has been causing problems. An effort is under way to trap that animal, he said.
“I have a soft spot in my heart for squirrels,” he said.
Dunn said she still plans to file a complaint with Vista even though it’s too late for the pigeon. She even had Manchester police report to the store after she told them “a man was walking around with a rifle.”
That wound up being the Vista employee who dispatched the pigeon with a BB gun.
“There are more humane ways to deal with it,” she said. “And I was offering them one of those ways . . . I spend my life doing rescue work for any animal. They have a right to be and a right to a humane exit.”
Neither Prive, Soucy nor Dunn knew exactly where in the store the bird was shot. By all accounts, no customers witnessed the incident. Prive said his employees generally try to get a nuisance bird into the back area of the store.
“People will say it’s just a bird but I don’t agree with that,” Dunn said. “I mean, I don’t like snakes, but they’re here. I have to deal with them. I can’t just go around shooting them.”
there's at least a couple of funny things with that line... :)
it's easier to trap snakes. They don't fly.