The Bucks County Courier Times covers the 1 million dollars donation by Barker too, and includes this:
Barker said he believes “the good citizens in Pennsylvania would be embarrassed if they knew in detail just how horrific these pigeon shoots are,” Barker said. “These are not hunters. They’re assassins.”
Assassins kill people. Birds are not people. Whether pigeon shooting is right or wrong, it’s not the moral equivalent to murdering humans, sorry.
For years, Barker said, “I’ve heard the same thing from everyone that is tormenting animals. There are thousands of people who are helping with every disease and the children of Haiti, but there are very few who are giving any money to help animals,” Barker said. “That’s what I do.
“I wonder how much the members of the gun club have given for the children of Haiti,” Barker added.
How many children in Haiti would that cool million have helped Bob? Don’t play that moral card with us, asshole. You’re donating a million to save fucking pigeons. There’s nothing particularly noble about that. If you have a million dollars burning a hole in your pocket, why not donate it to children in Haiti? If it’s because the pigeons are important to you, you have no moral room to disparage others who also feel passionately about the pigeons… err… as targets.
Even if protesters somehow managed to shut down the pigeon shoots, that wouldn’t save the birds, Corr said. “The pigeons in question have been trapped as pests and are in line for extermination,” according to Corr. “The pest control companies usually accomplish this by asphyxiation, more precisely by sealing the trap with plastic and then introducing carbon dioxide gas.”
One could perhaps argue that’s more humane than shooting them, but the point that pigeons are vermin is a valid one. They will be killed one way or the other. What makes Leo Holt particularly more reprehensible than the pest control workers who kill the pigeons by gassing them to death or poisoning them?
Keep in mind that I have no issue with groups putting social pressure on PGC to cease their pigeon shoots, and wouldn’t even have a problem with Bob Barker lending his celebrity to the cause. But that million will go to lobbying — lobbying for a ban that’s going to ban many forms of dog training, among other things as well, including putting pigeon shooters in prison. Social pressure is fine, but I do not advocate the government coming in and forcing one group’s moral preferences on another. Isn’t that what folks get uppity about the religious right for?
Pigeon shooting is not hunting and pigeons are not game.
I don’t believe the PGC regulates (or has the power to regulate) this activity.
I’m not even sure that asphyxiating them is more humane than shooting them. It is the presence of carbon dioxide, not the lack of oxygen, that triggers the ‘air hunger’ feeling. Would you rather suffocate, or be shot? Both seem pretty unpleasant to me.
I love how a man who routinely sexually assaults his employees somehow can play the morality card with ANIMALS without the hint of irony.
Classy!
By his actions and remarks, the man obviously prefers pigeons to poor black children. I’m going to go with the favorite expression of understanding from the left; RAAACCCCIST!!!