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

It is curious that killing preserve birds is acceptable to most of us while pigeon shooting may not be. In all cases it is killing with a gun, some clean kills, many not so clean.

I cannot say one is ethically superior to the other. I understand that the pigeons are partially plucked live and boxed and I cannot defend the pain of the plucking.

That said in the end killing is killing, no matter how it is romanticized or idealized.

I have not engaged in pigeon shooting, nor does it interest me, but I cannot condemn it without feeling like a hypocrite

Distortion, emotion and exaggeration is why all shooting sports are under pressure today.

I have no problem killing an animal in fair chase and-or when the meat is utilized by the shooter, shopper or SOMEONE. But I do have a problem caging the pigeons, terrorizing and torturing them, launching them from dark boxes where they are disoriented, killing some, wounding others that are never followed up to put out of their misery, and after all that discarding the carcasses. I'm sorry to say I have done live bird shoots in the past, but never again. No distortion or exaggeration, I've seen it. Wise up guys, this is a cruel activity.

Hi all,
in about 1974 as a young(ish) shooting man, at that time particularly into clay pigeon (trap) shooting, I was invited by a colleague, a very nice young lady of portuguese ancestry, to visit Portugal with her for a holiday.
As she new that I was shooting at (clay) birds, she had arranged through her family (apparently one of her uncles, rather highly placed in the Portuguese Government of the time, if I remember correctly, to accommodate 'my good friend' in arranging a temporary membership of the local Lisbon shooting club).
I duly arrived at a beautifullly arranged country club (what I later learned to be about CA standard) and was invited to participate in the 'competition' which happened on that day and which I thought was a 'Clay Pigeon' - probably Trap competition - but in fact happened to be THE 'live pigeon' National Competition.
My Browning B25 B2 (what you call 'Superposed' I believe) did me proud on that day!
This was a 'trap' shoot - with live pigeons flying out of traps arranged as in a trap clay pigeon shoot.

Although I was surprised by the 'live' birds, I managed to perform not too badly - if I remember correctly, I ended up coming 3rd (perhaps second - cannot remember now).

Anyway, the birds were given to local families and cooked for dinner!
In my opinion no difference to 'walked up' pigeons or other game.

Regards from England
G�nter
NRA Life 1974

There is nothing like it! The sport of Kings!

I have two acquaintances who put themselves through college trapping pigeons for the box bird and columbaire rings....the towns and communities they trapped birds in were grateful to see them gone and they were grateful to get a college education. Another school mate paid his way through college selling illegal home rolled cigarettes......I have more respect for the pigeon trappers. But; that's off the main topic....they didn't call the guns "pigeon guns" or "pigeon grade" because they were used to shoot doves.

Animal shot and eaten, OK.
Animal shot and left to rot just for sport, not OK.
CHAZ

We shoot live pigeon down here from boxes, they don�t get shocked though, they use a compressed air system to get them going from the off, I enjoy it but Helis (as they call them in Spain or ZZ in UK) is just as much fun IMO though if you ever visit London and see the state of the monuments, statues etc covered in pigeon sh*t you wouldn�t be bothered how many you sent to the hereafter ! best, Mike

I shoot box birds occasionally. I cannot afford, nor can I justify, spending as much of my income as would be necessary to do so regularly. Lots of travel in regularly shooting flyers in the South. Some of my friends regularly drive to Texas for shoots, from Georgia.

As to the ethics involved, I cannot agree with Nitro E. He assigns emotions to an animal (terror). This is inconsistent with what I believe an animal to be capable of feeling. Pain, yes, though not the same as humans because there is no emotion, again. Anyway, the alternative to controlling pigeons, where they are trapped, is poison laced grain. Does Nitro think the carcasses of poisoned pigeons are consumed? No difference in a dead pigeon from poison or from a load of 7 1/2s. EXCEPT, the pigeon used in a ring has a darn sight better chance of surviving it than the poison.

SRH

Since he is assigning human emotions to an animal would he rather have it die a slow death from poison or a quick one from those 7-1/2's? When I raised hogs years ago my vet told me they carried disease to pigs so I shot the nasty things. One old man and his wife took them home to eat.