PETA Offers Dovecote to Bristol Church Planning to Electrocute Pigeons

For Immediate Release:

23 April 2020

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

PETA OFFERS DOVECOTE TO BRISTOL CHURCH PLANNING TO ELECTROCUTE PIGEONS

Group Calls for Cruel Deterrents to Be Axed So Birds Won’t Suffer

Bristol – After learning that St Mary Redcliffe Church plans to use electric-shock devices to stop pigeons roosting on the building, PETA has sent an urgent letter to the Rev Dan Tyndall asking him to drop the cruel shock tactics and opt for a humane solution instead.

“Pigeons are nesting at St Mary Redcliffe because it’s their home – they were born and bred there. They’re entitled to be treated with kindness and respect, just as all parishioners are,” writes PETA Campaigns Officer Theodora Iona. “We owe it to these gentle, intelligent, family-orientated birds to embrace a live-and-let-live outlook.”

Humane management options, including nesting boxes or dovecotes – structures that pigeons are encouraged to roost in, with food and nesting materials, so that their eggs can be collected regularly and destroyed and hatchlings left alone – have been proved effective.

The letter (available here) concludes, “PETA would be willing to provide St Mary Redcliffe with a beautiful dovecote – or a donation towards one – which would no doubt delight churchgoers while encouraging them to respect all of God’s creatures.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – notes that in addition to causing pain, electric shocks provoke distress, anxiety, and confusion in animals. And while electric-shock systems aren’t intended to kill the target species, the Pigeon Control Advisory Service notes that manufacturers are unable to guarantee that an electric shock intended to deter a pigeon won’t kill a smaller bird, such as a robin or a sparrow.

PETA also notes that pigeons have their own culture, mate for life, are devoted parents, and pass the “mirror test”, demonstrating self-awareness and intelligence.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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