I can't find reference right now but for those with Christian beliefs one of the recent Popes said that animals have souls and will be with us in the afterlife. I have definitely seen emotions of pride, jealousy, shame shown by my canines and by a ferret. Some here would have us believe there's a threshold below that for animals they consider dumb & lesser. First pigeon shoot I went to in the 1970's was at a small sportsmens club with simple equipment, and older local people of european descent gathered up all the dead birds and were hunting down the wounded ones, all for food. In fact the shoot kept stopping because men and women were in the shot fall area chasing after the wounded ones. Things deteriorated since then with most of the shoots now held for those who could care less how the birds are treated, what happened to the meat and what happens to the wounded birds that fly past the fence. I stopped doing pigeon races when I went to one and saw where the operators tied 'rigs' for lack of a better word on the necks of the pigeons. Rig had a dangling mirrored gizmo that keeps the pigeon terrorized that a predator is approaching from different directions. Erratic flight might make it easier for the 'sport' to miss but who takes the rigs off the birds when they fly off and try to live with it after crossing the fence? These pigeon shoots, modern P.C. type word 'Races', may have been a sport a long time ago when the birds were harvested for food and shooting wasn't enhanced with electric shocks, air blasts and gizmos, but imho not today. I hope readers learn here what really goes on there. CB
