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Monday, October 21, 2002

By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

An "invitational bird shoot" was held at White Oak Rod and Gun Club yesterday, not at all unusual for the 45-year-old North Huntingdon gunnery range, unless the targets had been live pigeons as some believed instead of pottery ones.

The Fund for Animals, after receiving several anonymous tips, asked the Westmoreland County club to halt what it believed was the first live bird shoot in southwestern Pennsylvania in several decades and to confine target practice to mechanically launched skeet and sporting clay pigeons.

But club President Mike Patronio said the animal rights group missed the mark.

"You hear about a bird shoot and a majority of shooters know we're talking about clay 'birds,' " said Patronio, as a thick morning fog began to lift over the shooting range deep in a woods-rimmed valley off Route 30.

"We don't use live turkeys for our turkey shoots anymore, and haven't held any live bird shoots here since the early 1980s."

Patronio said the confusion about the targets of the private shoot, held by an organization that leased the rod and gun club's range, caused enough confusion to generate 27 phone calls to his home between noon Saturday and 2 a.m. yesterday.

"I don't appreciate the harassment," he said. "They've called the clays 'birds' for hundreds of years. I haven't even heard of any real bird shoots anywhere."

But the rumors of a live bird shoot were so widespread that a club member showed up mid-morning asking about it, and six Fund for Animal members were camped out in two cars along the road near the club's entrance.

"We're just here to rescue wounded birds and film what we see," said P.J. McKosky, a Fund for Animals cruelty caseworker. "We won't be holding any protest here today."

The Fund for Animals opposes live pigeon shoots, claiming they violate Pennsylvania animal cruelty laws, like cockfighting and dogfighting, because many of the birds involved are not killed but wounded and then denied medical treatment.

Pigeon shooters compete for prizes by trying to shoot birds released one at a time from small coops or boxes. Some of the boxes are wired with electricity that shocks the birds and causes them to fly when the box is opened, according to Heidi Prescott, Fund for Animals president. Those that are wounded and can't fly are sometimes gathered by "trapper boys" who rip off their heads, stomp on them or throw them into barrels where they suffocate.

Although the shoots are not illegal like dogfights and cockfights, animal rights groups and county humane officers are challenging pigeon shoots in court cases pending in Dauphin and Berks counties.

Two years ago the Fund for Animals helped humane officials get organizers to agree to stop the Hegins pigeon shoot in Schuylkill County, which had been held every Labor Day since 1934.

Prescott said questions raised by her group may have caused the organization leasing the gun club range to change its plans.

"These things are always very hush-hush. They want to keep these things quiet, but we called them Wednesday, asked them to stop and mentioned there are a lot of legal questions," she said.

"Pennsylvania is the last bastion for live pigeon shoots, while nearly every other state has deemed them cruel and illegal. If Hegins can agree to forego pigeon shoots, other Pennsylvania communities can do the same."