THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Time ripe to crack down on bird abusers

Time ripe to crack down on bird abusers

More than 30,000 Taiwanese pigeon breeders race about two million pigeons each year, of which an estimated 1.5 million die, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The American animal rights organization, which launched an investigation into Taiwan's deadly pigeon races earlier this year, has long argued that races often prove fatal for pigeons released hundreds of kilometers offshore and forced to fly home. The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) has now demonstrated that pigeon racing here is nothing more than illegal gambling and tax evasion, and has successfully frozen millions in assets held by pigeon-racing gambling clubs and some of its members in the Taichung and Greater Kaohsiung areas.
It is good news that police have come down hard on cruel and illegal pigeon-racing clubs run by local mafias. For once, Taiwanese officials should also be commended for cracking down on bird abusers, while we should all take heart that cruelty to animals is now being taken with the seriousness that it deserves. Pigeon racing is not a common hobby for bird-loving people. It is a grueling system of races over the open ocean that has the highest racing death rates in the world. That's what activists learned firsthand when meeting with top pigeon-racing officials, observing pigeon racers training birds in three cities, visiting pigeon lofts, attending the shipping night of a race of the largest club, touring a ship that transports pigeons for races and watching the loading, and recording footage of bird releases for races in the South China Sea.
We should make no mistake about it. Pigeon racing is a lose-lose pastime – for the birds and the gamblers. Young pigeons are transported out to sea in cargo ships and released in all kinds of weather, regardless of the danger. Hundreds of kilometers offshore, the birds are forced to try to make their way home with no land in sight. At the same time, pigeon breeders invest hundreds of thousands of New Taiwan dollars to buy and raise young birds, purposely knowing that what they are really there for is losing money, until they eventually balance their accounts.
The extreme weather conditions at sea, where animals cannot protect themselves from the elements, lead to the highest death rates for pigeons in the world. Pigeons often fly low over the water to avoid as much wind as possible, resulting in thousands of young birds being swept underwater by waves or succumbing to exhaustion. In one race that PETA US observed, pigeons were released into typhoon-force winds; 85 percent of them failed to return and are presumed to have perished. These aren't races – they are like playing Russian roulette with the lives of young animals. In Taiwan, birds race in one seven-race series when they are between four-and-a-half and six-months old. Yet, the birds only get one chance to win. Even if they manage to survive the ocean races, they likely will have their necks snapped if they don't return in the qualifying time.
Pigeons don't deserve such a fate. Besides being loyal mates and nurturing parents, these birds are personable and extremely smart. We should be equally smart and work toward ethics that go beyond human self-interest; refined ethics that not only advocate a return to a greater appreciation of nature, but also strike back against animal cruelty and illegal gambling. That is the reason why the time is ripe to crack down on bird abusers, because we need to decide what kind of future we want to leave for posterity.
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