A Brooklyn pet store owner once again stands accused of capturing pigeons to sell to hunters for use as live shooting targets.
As the New York Post reports, pigeon keepers allege Michael Scott, co-owner Broadway Pigeon & Pet Supplies, kidnaps pigeons from local parks before trafficking them to hunters—a practice that’s against the law.
“My beloved flock was netted a week ago, and I know that it happens—but when it happens to you, it’s different,” said Tina Piña, a local pigeon keeper known as Mother Pigeon on social media. Piña told the paper that a witness saw between 15 and 20 of her pigeons taken from Maria Hernandez Park early in the morning of April 1.
While Scott, 56, did not reply to the paper’s request for comment, his brother Joey Scott, a partner in the pet store, denied the allegations, saying they only sell pigeons from their own rooftop coop to dog trainers and other customers.
“I don’t ask what they do with them, but they kill them and they train dogs with them … if I have my own pigeons and they’re mine and nobody else’s and I breed them, I’m allowed to do what I want with them,” he said.
Scott says pigeon enthusiasts are framing the store for the kidnappings, though a lawyer for Michael Scott in 2008 conceded that the store sold birds for use at a pigeon-shooting contest in Pennsylvania.
Piña claims the kidnappings line up with similar events.
“They collect the pigeons right before the weekend of the shoot, and then the pigeons are all gone.”
Piña led a 60-person protest in front of the Scotts’ store on Saturday and plans to organize rallies throughout the summer.
The post ‘The Pigeons Are All Gone’: Brooklyn Pet Store Owner Accused of Trapping and Selling Pigeons to Hunters appeared first on BKMAG.
