Whether the pigeons are eaten or not is s small issue compared to ripping out their flight feathers. That is wanton cruelty.
Most pigeons that are shot in the ring have no feathers removed from them. Where I shoot box birds I can assure you they are not. Those that escape the ring, and there are many, most often fly around the area, back and forth over the ring, and anyone can see that their's is a natural and undisturbed flight. Not exactly the expected actions of an animal that has just been "terrorized and tortured".
Plucking a very few feathers from a pigeon is most often done by columbaires who throw the hand-thrown birds. These are a very small percentage of total pigeons shot in the ring. The idea is
NOT that plucking a selected feather or two makes the bird more likely to be killed. Quite the opposite. Trained columbaires know exactly which feather or two will cause the bird's first few yards of flight to be very erratic and unpredictable, greatly increasing it's chances of survival.
SRH
