Controversy
A report commissioned by Scottish National Heritage and the Scottish Homing Union found that on average 56% of birds released each season do not make it home. In 1996 more than 34,000 birds were lost in Scotland and 8,000 returned injured. According to the report, birds who aren't considered fast enough and aren't wanted for breeding are "culled"— killed by suffocation, drowning, neck-breaking, gassing, or decapitation.
Between 2010 and 2012, PETA conducted an investigation into the practices of pigeon racing in the US. It found that there were casualty rates of 60 percent or more among birds during races and training due to weather, predators, electrical lines, and hunters. Races that are particularly fatal are referred to as "smash races." At the 2011 American Racing Pigeon Union Convention, 827 out of the original 2,294 birds survived training flights.
In April 2012, PETA presented the findings from a 15-month investigation to 17 law enforcement agencies. PETA's lawyers said they had hundreds of pages of evidence on the illegalities in pigeon racing and alleged a $15 million illegal gambling market. PETA asserted that only 40 percent of pigeons survive a race. PETA also found that some pigeon racers used performance-enhancing drugs on their pigeons. Bronx Homing Pigeon Club president Lou Bernardone has said, “There is no gambling. We give trophies. You get nice big plaques with your name on it and everything.”
Read more about this topic: Pigeon Racing
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)