Someone steals pigeons from the streets of New York City.
Captured grainy bystander videoIt happened one day at the beginning of April in Manhattan, when a man, his face obscured by a low hat, a gigantic butterfly net went over a small herd, shot dozens of birds up and parked in the trunk of a car on 10th Avenue.
Taunted as Rats with wings Or, with a slimmer margin, loved as a downy, dirty urban icons, pigeons look like a part of New York just as well as his skyline. The sympathetic throw them pretzel -chunks, the disgusting kick through their Trottingir confabs, and even the Agnostic covers their heads when they pass under their metroplatform.
But who would steal pigeons?
Mother Pigeon, a Pro-Pigeon activist who feeds herds of pigeons dressed as a pigeon while they also sold felt statuettes of pigeons, it was certain that she had the answer: the two brothers who own a pet store on the edge of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Their store is suitable for the shrinking corps of pigeon holders of the city and she believes that they resell the birds for use in living pigeon shoots in Pennsylvania.
And so last month they and a small collection of pigeon activists showed up in the store, Broadway pigeons and pets supplies, waving placards and singing on the sidewalk. The owners deny that they have something to do with stolen pigeons and say that they have been attacked unfairly by pigeon partisans.
But a new suspect arose not long after the protest.
Somewhat lost in the conflict is a fact that little is known for most people: that the pigeons of New York City actually become regularly. There was a result of thefts in 2017, 2019 and again in 2022, according to Humane World for Animals, who followed the nets. Some of those birds, the organization says, end up as food for a controversial but legal sport with devoted defenders, in which the most important object is to throw and shoot a living bird in the air.
Dressed in a jacket with felt gray feathers, mother pigeon, whose real name is Tina Piña Trachtenburg, but who goes by Mrs. Piña, squatted into Maria Hernandez Park In Bushwick on a recent weekday, while spotted pigeons tumbled over her hands and had a shoulders to seed. She deserves the cost of selling her felt pigeons in parks for between $ 35 and $ 75 each.
Earlier this month, part of her live herd was netted, according to a man she pays $ 10 a day to view a bird while he hangs around in the park; The herd was less than half of the size it was a month ago, she said.
“How sad is this?” She asked and spread her wings to record what remained. Tears started well in the eyes of Mrs. Piña. “The propaganda against pigeons is intense.”
This dedication (she calls it “deaf lotion”) led her to organize a rally outside of Broadway pigeons, giving them the blaming of the two brothers who own it, Michael and Joey Scott, for the disappearances.
Reached in the store, Michael Scott, who had been accused in the past From selling pigeons to shooters, denied violent involvement. He said he was worshiped his own 600 pigeons and was wrongly and unfairly focused. However, the accusations have not dimmed his almost lifelong love for taking care of pigeons, he added.
“Let me see some pictures of my pigeon bites, then I start to shake in my boots,” said Mr. Scott in a telephone interview before I hung up.
In a sense, the pigeons from New York belong to the city itself. They are officially designated city in the city (such as raccoons, squirrels and even Astoria de Turkey), and it is therefore illegal to catch or kill them.
“I hear from people who absolutely love pigeons, and I hear from many people who are compassionate for all conscious creatures, but also do not see the beauty,” said Alexandra Silver, the director of the mayor’s office of Animal Welfare. “But I am happy that we have a law that describes that you cannot do this, that you cannot deliver birds.”
But in Pennsylvania, pigeons are an honest game in a sport with a long heritage called Flyer Shooting. In his law firm in Doylestown, Pa., Paul PerlsteinA lawyer and the spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Flyers Association, keeps what he says a photo from 1913 of a man who shot pigeons on the Champs-Elysées in Paris; The same city organized live pigeon shooting as sport in the 1900 Olympic Games. There has been no accusation that the association did something illegal.
In Flyer shooting, a bird is thrown by a “columbaire”; As soon as the bird folds to a certain height, the shooter can aim.
The pigeons used in the sport are usually ‘annoying birds’, according to Mr. Perlstein, which would have been eradicated – bridge that nests under bridges, for example, where their very corrosive droppings can hollow out posts.
Indeed, New York City means that licensed destroyers kill pigeons. To the knowledge of Mr. Perlstein, there were no street birds in New York City the supply chain of Flyer -Schiet events in Pennsylvania. But there are many clubs and many suppliers. Is there a possibility that someone had introduced stolen street pigeons somewhere in the events? Maybe.
In her workshop in Bushwick, where wire pigeons were piled up in baskets and a living street pigeon and a thick squirrel freely shot through an open window to the kitchen table, Mrs. Piña stroked the fate of her lost herd and confirmed her certainty that the pet store was involved in some way. This was not the first time she had focused on the store: a few years ago she claimed that she was having the habit of a nun, was presented as a customer and secretly chopped birds from the back of the store. Nobody, she said, found out.
“She needs help,” said a woman who answered the phones in the store who would only give her first name – Lisa, she said – for fear of activist recoil. “She thinks she’s a pigeon.”
On April 30, the police won Daley, 67, from Bushkill, Pa., According to whom they say it created birds in Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan. Officers discovered a truck that was parked in the neighborhood with nets and more than 25 pigeons in cages.
Mr Daley was accused of one census of crime animal abuse and released, but he was arrested again the next day and accused of crime attack for his involvement in a fight from 2021. The police said he was trying to stop him to stop him in Brooklyn, those two of the man of the man of the man.
In 2007, Mr. Daley was also caught stealing pigeons After a man in Oost -Hharlem has set up an angel operation to find out why his beloved pigeon had disappeared. At that time, Mr Daley said he had bred the birds or sold it at an auction. “It’s not like I’m doing something wrong with them,” he said then.
Mr Daley could not be reached for comment. There is no information that suggests that he is connected to the Brooklyn Pet Shop.
In the store, Michael Scott said that attention had unexpectedly doubled his business. He said he Mr. Daley had never met. The April arrest, he said, meant that activists who focused on him and his brother ‘flew into the wrong chicken run’.
However, mother pigeon was not apologetic. While she took care of one -eyed pigeon in her apartment and news about the arrest of Mr. Daley absorbed, she said she still believed that the scotts were not good and that she and her group already have plans to protest against the store again.
“If someone came in and took 10 dogs from the dog park, they would have been convicted,” said Mrs. Piña. “Pigeons are not considered an animal that people feel that they should love and protect them,” she added. “It’s hurtful.”
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