SLAUGHTER OF PIGEONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 182, 4 July 1931, Page 6

SLAUGHTER OF PIGEONS.

The annual slaughter of live pigeons at the championship meeting of the New Zealand Gun Club has brought forth a spirited protest from Air TV. L. Alartin, the Labour member for Raglan whose constituency is contiguous to Hamilton, the Tenue of this week’s gathering, and from prominent citizens of the Waikato town, including the Mayor. Mr Martin is asking the Minister for the responsible Department of State whether he will introduce legislation making it illegal for gun clubs to use live pigeons. Emphasis is placed by the member on the report that more than 2000 birds, most of which were tame, were to be slaughtered at this “so called sport.” Responsible opinion throughout the country will support the request made to the Government. It is not a new one, and it is surprising in a country noted for its humane people that the sport has been permitted for so long. One of the staunchest opponents of live bird shooting is Mr G. M. Thomson, of Dunedin, whose Captive Birds Shooting Prohibition Bill is wellknown to members of the Legislative Council. At least six times Mr Thomson has brought this measure before the Council, to see it approved and then find it among the “slaughtered innocents” of the House of Representatives. His efforts, worthy indeed of a better fate, have been most disappointing. Notwithstanding that the Bill has had the support of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other leaders of thought, whose abhorrence of the cruelty inflicted on feathered captives in the Competitions has been repeatedly expressed, the members of the Lower House have shelved the matter. We are far behind the Mother Country in this respect. In 1914 a measure was enacted in the House of Commons, of which Mr Thomson’s Bill was a copy, prohibiting the use of live birds in such competitions, and France and the United States have also approved of this humanitarian legislation. Why, then, should New Zealand lag behind? In conjunction with .the pigeon championships this week were held the clay bird and live sparrow competitions, and the slaughter of the smaller birds was no less detestable than releasing pigeons from traps to be shot down as they rose in the air. There are parts of New Zealand, it is pleasing to note, where only clay models are used, and there seems no reason, as it provides a championship competition, why the Gun Club could not confine its matches to artificial pigeons. There is reason to believe that the prominence given to the matter in Parliament —Mr Thomson inclines to this belief—has led to an increased number of clubs adopting clay pigeons, but it . would appear that nothing short of an Act of Parliament will lead to the abolition of the present practice, which is carried on also -in Canterbury and in one or two other places . The breeding or trapping of birds to provide a marksmen’s holiday is a wretched business which liumanitajriair considerations should end.