My reply from PETA

Dear Martyn,



Thank you for contacting PETA regarding our investigations of pigeon racing.



In March 2013, PETA released the results of a two-month-long undercover investigation by PETA US of all the major pigeon-racing organizations in the UK that revealed widespread apparent illegal activity. This exposé documented a race in which more than 90 percent of the pigeons did not return and were believed to have died and also showed for the first time on film the cruel culling (killing) of a bird.



Recorded conversations with presidents of top British pigeon-racing organizations and an analysis of more than a decade’s worth of publicly available statistics show that, on average, three-quarters of all birds forced to fly the grueling journey from Spain or France to the U.K. go missing. Almost all are presumed to have died after becoming exhausted, being attacked by predators, hitting electrical wires, or crashing into the English Channel. Many birds who do return but don’t win prize money or show enough promise have their necks wrung in order to make way for younger birds. Most birds do not survive their first year, and only a tiny percentage will make it to 4 years of age because of race deaths and the culling of “losing” birds.



PETA US has sent formal complaints to the UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs as well as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Gambling Commission urging them to launch investigations. In addition, PETA. has sent a letter to Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth, who is patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association and maintains a loft of approximately 250 birds, asking her to review her involvement in this deadly “sport.” The PETA US investigation and review of racing statistics show that every one of the birds from The Queen’s loft entered into one race filmed by PETA US went missing.



For more information, please go to http://action.peta.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=5&ea.campaign.id=18689



Previously, PETA US’s five-state, 15-month probe into the illegal, seedy underworld of US pigeon racing (released in April 2012) documented massive bird deaths during races and training, discovered rampant deliberate killing and abusive training and racing methods, and exposed a multimillion-dollar illegal gambling industry. This investigation resulted in felony gambling charges against three race organizers in Oklahoma, including the executive director of the national American Racing Pigeon Union.



To read more, please go to this page on the PETA US website: http://www.PETA.org/features/investigation-exposes-pigeon-racing-cruelty.aspx.



Pigeons who are forced to race are taken hundreds of miles away from their mates and squabs. Handlers put live worms, flies, or maggots into plastic eggs and place them under hens and cocks days before a race to trick them into thinking that their eggs will be hatching imminently and make them desperate to return to their lofts. These techniques exploit pigeons’ natural loyalty to their mates and dedication to their young. Many birds die when they are forced to race through storms or are attacked by predators, such as hawks. The ones who must land because of injury, exhaustion, or inclement weather often starve to death because they are unable to survive in the wild. Many birds never return from races. Races that are particularly fatal are referred to as “smash races.” In one such race in Queens, New York, in the US, only four out of 213 birds returned. At the 2011 American Racing Pigeon Union (AU) Convention Race, only 827 out of the 2,294 baby birds entered into the race survived training flights, and only 487 completed the 325-mile race by nightfall.



Pigeons who manage to make it all the way home but consistently fail to beat their competitors’ speeds and thus are not wanted for future racing or breeding are usually killed to make room for next season’s birds. Many owners slaughter the majority of their young pigeons at the end of the racing season, rather than paying to care for the birds in the off-season. Culling methods include breaking or wringing birds’ necks, gassing them, drowning them, and selling them to live-poultry markets. PETA US documented one world-renowned racer as he admitted that he generally has to buy 12 pigeons for breeding before he finds one whose offspring perform better than his original birds and that he just kills the others and their offspring. One pigeon racer told PETA US undercover investigators: “The first thing you have to learn—how to kill pigeons.”



To learn more about how animals suffer when they are used for entertainment, please go to http://www.peta.org.uk/issues/animals-are-not-ours-to-use-for-entertainment/. For tips on how you can become active to help these animals, visit http://www.peta.org.uk/action/.



Sincerely,



Claire Drake

do not respond to them thats what they want nothing better to do than sit talking bullshit 24/7
is clair aware 3000 african childred die each day lack of food and water
shame they dont do something to help them

p,s and if our goverment respond to this shit then they to have feck all better to do all day

mmm, very unsettling martyn, these people have a very good knack of manipulating the truth, they are quoting facts but manipulating the ones they can make pigeon racing look bad through.......

just noticed the link "animals are not ours to use for entertainment", i wonder if they have contacted the rspb about the live camera on nottingham university, watching those bops in un-natural nesting conditions and being used for entertainment

So will they ban horse racing and dog racing to?? Crufts ? Zoo's?

My thoughts as well David, they are manipulating slight truths for a cause, a bit like a religon?

martyn ive just seen this on another site, it may be of interest to you......ive been thinking about the reply you recieved from peta and think it would be a good idea if more of us could email them like you did.....ok its a drop in the ocean but why give them an easy ride eh.

http://theloftreport.com/breaking-news-au-reponds/

Thats it David we got to bombard them with unhappy emails and they might just think they got it wrong about us...which they have.
I will pm you my reply to that email if you want or post it?

yes please martyn, im sure members would like to see your reply.......

This was my reply to peta, you can all read what they emailed to me which seemed as though they almost used it as an oppotunity to preach to me and justify their actions with the video.

Hello,

And firstly thank you for your reply, however I have to again say that being a pigeon fancier since I was 6 years old and that means over 39 years, most of what you have written to me is totally untrue and I hardly recognise what you have said about pigeon racing.

This for me is so disappointing based on the fact that you have hand picked certain things about racing pigeons and misread and manipulated it until is misrepresents what actually happens, there are truths in what you have written but believe me you have missed the point completely, also you cannot know that pigeon racing is very geographical and the differences are vast in attitudes and racing systems.

I can assure you that where I live in Wales nobody ever culls pigeons because they are slow to make way for younger birds, and that is NEVER, also I can also assure you that racing pigeons are capable of surviving completely free from a loft and inhabit every town, city and farm through out the UK.

Your surveys and undercover agents are flawed by their lack of knowledge and this is why your comments are foreign to me in every way AND CAN NEVER REPRESENT THE PIGEON RACING SPORT, all of what I have said I can prove beyond a doubt at any time and welcome anyone from your society to visit me and talk about these matters so that the record can be put straight.

Then I might be able to I stop you publishing lies about the sport.

You will find that in everything in life, there is a good and a bad side, and you can always find a minority who will cast a shadow over the truth and blur the facts which in turn stick forever. However pigeon fanciers are themselves a ,minority and have to constantly struggle to preserve this wonderful sport for which pigeons were bred for, not housed in cramped poorly ventilated, hot accommodation like battery hens, also they fly free and decide to fly for the love of home and the fancier by free will, not as you state condemned to a life racing or death culled because they fly too slowly.

But loved and cared for, cherished and admired for their inelegance and beauty, given the finest houses, the best sun ripened corn, and released daily to fly freely and enjoy life breeding and having a happy existence.

　

Yours martyn rudd

very good reply you have put together, but alas i think they have planted the seed ?, and yet again another nail in the coffin, cant be many years left in this game anyway ?, dont mean to sound a defeatest, but we all have to be realistic dont we.

dont answer dont replie to anything they post its just coppied and pasted to there sites from the pigeon sites there morans ignore them without responce they go away

yes best to ignore um they love all that sh**e it fuels their fire

birdy2011 wrote:

do not respond to them thats what they want nothing better to do than sit talking bullshit 24/7
is clair aware 3000 african childred die each day lack of food and water
shame they dont do something to help them

p,s and if our goverment respond to this shit then they to have feck all better to do all day

yes very true g all the strife in syria , sudan ,somalia and they wanna have a pop at pigeon fanciers....ffs peta get a life and do something constructive to help someone