Letters to the Editor for September 10

Here are today’s Letters to the Editors…

Submitted by Caroline Unger of the Women’s Humane Society:

When the Pennsylvania legislature returns to session this fall our state representatives will have the opportunity to pass House Bill 1750 which will, finally, outlaw the barbaric practice of killing pigeons for sport.

Pennsylvania is the only state in the union that allows live pigeon shoots. Hundreds of these birds are caged and left to get hungry and dehydrated to the point of becoming completely disoriented. When released from their cages, they fly around frantically while hunters shoot them down for entertainment. Sometimes, mercifully, they die instantly, however, in other cases they are only maimed and left to suffer a painful and prolonged death.

The Women’s Humane Society has been actively lobbying state representatives to ban live pigeon shoots since 1883. Anytime a sympathetic legislator introduced a bill to end this heinous sport it was defeated. This year, we have an opportunity and an obligation to finally make live pigeon shoots illegal. House Bill 1750 also proposes to make the humane consumption of dogs and cats illegal. It’s fairly safe to say most human beings in our culture abhor the thought of eating a cat or dog and, at the very least, consider it immoral.

Most of us would agree that animals enrich our lives. Scientific studies have shown people who have pets are happier and seem to live longer. But, in Pennsylvania, animals are considered property. Can you imagine being loved or greeted at your door by a piece of property? And, yet, we still kill pigeons for sport and are permitted to eat dogs and cats.

The Women’s Humane Society does not have an opinion on gun ownership or the constitutional right to bear arms. We do, however, object to any form of animal abuse or cruelty regardless of how it is inflicted.

We hope your readers will stand with the Women’s Humane Society in our plea to law makers in Pennsylvania to pass House Bill 1750 before any more animals are senselessly killed.

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