doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pigeon shooting

I agree with George.......especially the last sentence......

I wonder if plants scream when you pull the plant out by the roots........?........

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

I know guys that shoot pigeons and have had the chance to go, but I really can't afford it. I would love to try it and maybe someday I will. I don't see any difference from shooting barn pigeons. The guys I know don't seem cruel to me.

My friend Stan is right on. Box birds do not suffer from plucking. However, a Columbaire may pull a few feathers from his bird to cause erratic flight. The feathers I have seen Columbaires pull from a pigeon would not cause much if any pain. In my opinion, it is more for the mental effect on the shooter than it is for the flight of the bird. My Dad used to tell me about "handling" birds at my Grandfather's ring, but I dismissed it as just "folk talk". My Dad's birds were homing pigeons and I doubt that they handled them much at all. After all, they had to use them again if they were missed. Murphy

The last pigeon I shot with a shotgun was over 20 years ago in my neighbor's yard. I gave him a 50 yard head start then I blasted the feathered rodent with Dad's 10 bore. PETA can't say that I didn't give him a flying chance.

Never shot pigeons in a ring, but always wanted too; just never had the chance. If I'd had the chance, I certainly wouldn't have any remorse over any birds I might kill in the process any more than I would feel for the crows I've shot and left laying for the worms and other opportunistic critters that gotta eat too. Nothing in nature is wasted; those carcasses will be used and consumed by something/s in some manner as it is returned to its basic elements. The only pigeons I've ever shot were those working a dove field; and when shot, those pigeon brests were simply included with the accumulated dove breasts (look and taste the same; just larger). That said, I haven't shot a pigeon in many years because I did feel VERY guilty about the last pigeon I killed. Seems in was a banded bird that belonged to some unknown pigeon racer. Don't know why the onwer let the bird out during dove season; but I've always been afraid that the bird I killed might have been worth a lot more than the gun I shot it with?

I have done it.

Killed the first five first barrel and thought; 'This is pretty easy'.

By the end of the afternoon I knew better.

You need tight chokes to kill going away birds and stop them dead before they cross the fence. Open chokes kill but not inside the fence. 1/2 and 3/4 or 3/4 and Full seem to be best. Too tight and you risk missing birds which cross or fly at you, closing range as they do.

First let me say I don't live pigeon shoot nor have I ever had the chance. Don't know enough about it to have a judgement about cruelty, one way or other.

While we (science) don't know if animals feel the same kind of emotions (terror) humans do, the last 100 years has been the history of disproving previously held beliefs that "dumb animals" are dumb.

Currently the only animal yet recorded, besides a human, of being able to plan three distinct, separate and consecutive uses of a tool to achieve one particular outcome is a bird, a crow in fact. Crows teach their young about dangers in the world (i.e specific humans) that have not ever harmed the young and a year later, with no contact with the human, the young remember. Crows are now being considered as perhaps the most intelligent animal besides humans. And the studies clearly suggest they have emotions of some sort.

Not that long ago it was said no animal feels pain. Kick a dog and tell me that's true.

Currently we are wrestling with whether animals feel emotions. Please, someone here with a dog tell me their dog feels neither joy nor shame. I've seen both from all of mine.

I'm all for the blood sport of hunting but I'm also for science and accurate knowledge, not misinformation to suit my case.

I can't attest to the accuracy of the following but many years ago, at some point during my educational career, spent entirely in church run ( Roman Catholic and then Anglican) schools, that at some point in the middle ages, the Pope needed to address exactly how big Heaven was and how it could hold all the dead creatures that had ever lived. His solution was to deny that animals felt pain or had emotion, thus rendering them soulless and Heaven, much less crowded.

Hunted and fished for over 50 years and now I do neither and do not kill anything that isn't bothering me to include insects and spiders in my house. I still like to eat fish and chicken but am cutting back on that too.For me seeing up close how precious life is and how easily lost makes it nearly impossible to take it. I do not have a problem for those who are ethically taking game and fish.The death of my son in 1986 and that of a little girl who died in my arms in a traffic accident in 2001 pushed me over the edge.

For canvasback

St. John Lucas
The curate thinks you have no soul; I know that he has none. But you,
Dear friend, whose solemn self-control, In our foursquare familiar pew,
Was pattern to my youth-whose bark called me in summer dawns to rove-
Have you gone down into the dark where none is welcome-none may love?
I will not think those good brown eyes have spent their life of truth so soon;
But in some canine paradise your wraith, I know, rebukes the moon,
And quarters every plain and hill, seeking his master...As for me,
This prayer at least the gods fulfill: That when I pass the flood and see
Old Charon by the Stygian coast take toll of all the shades who land,
Your little, faithful, barking ghost may leap to lick my phantom hand.

More on dogs in heaven
http://www.picturetrail.com/members/community/homePage/blogPage.php?uid=6511424&entryID=23339