FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, October 31, 1997
CONTACT:
Heidi Prescott, 301-585-2591, hprescott@fund.org
Angel Gambino, 301-585-2591, agambino@fund.org
OXFORD, N.C. -- On November 6-9, the Dogwood Gun Club in Oxford is scheduled to hold a live pigeon shooting contest. The Fund for Animals and the North Carolina Network for Animals have alerted the Granville County Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney's Office that the scheduled pigeon shoot is a violation of North Carolina's cruelty to animals law, and the groups are expecting the appropriate law enforcement action to halt the event.
In a four-page letter sent to Sheriff Marion T. Grissom earlier this week, The Fund for Animals' Director of Legal Affairs, Angel Gambino, cited a court precedent set forth in State v. Porter (1893), where the Appellate Court upheld a defendant's misdemeanor conviction for committing cruelty to animals when engaging in a live pigeon shooting contest.
During live pigeon shooting contests, usually thousands of pigeons are released one at a time from individual boxes, and contestants shoot at the birds to score points and win prizes. Investigators from The Fund for Animals have documented at dozens of pigeon shoots in other states that approximately 75 percent of the birds are not killed immediately, but rather are wounded. Some wounded birds fly into the woods to die slowly of their injuries; others are collected by children who kill the animals by ripping off their heads, stomping on them, banging their necks against steel barrels, or throwing them into barrels to suffocate.
Says Ms. Gambino, "It is impossible to hold a live pigeon shoot without hundreds of violations of the animal cruelty law. These birds are unjustifiably maimed and killed for a contest, and hundreds of injured birds are neglected. The organizers are already violating North Carolina law simply by planning this illegal event. It is illegal, immoral, and simply must be halted."
Click here to view a copy of the four-page letter.
