Bensalem’s Philadelphia Gun Club (PGC) just filed a civil suit against Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) in Federal Court for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. This is most certainly not the first suit filed in the decades-long war on pigeon hunting in Pennsylvania, but it is one of the first where a Gun Club is the plaintiff and not the defendant.
The PGC entered a statement accusing SHARK of, “a pattern of harassment, hounding, intimidation, trespass, invasion of privacy, and intrusion,” by loitering during monthly live pigeon shoots, playing loud recording, holding signs adorned with dildos, and, occasionally, flying drones. They have also taken photos of participants and leaked them online in what the PGC is calling, “an advanced form of cyberbullying.”
On April 7, state Representative Mark Keller announced plans to amend the Pennsylvania Game Code to expressly permit live pigeon shoots, while SB 510, a bill forbidding shoots is already on the floor. Every year similar bills are brought to the state senate floor, but no clarification has been reached on either side. Both hunters and activists are frustrated with duking it out in civil court.
As it turns out, this particular suit doesn’t have much to do with Pennsylvania at all. Five of the seven defendants from SHARK are from out of state. SHARK is based in Chicago, and the NRA, which is backing the PGC is located in the D.C. area. Even the actual PGC lists its address in New Jersey. And with Pennsylvania hunters generally considering the practice quite separate from hunting, the consensus is that this is really a federal issue that won’t have much local effect.
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Source: http://citypaper.net/article.php?The-war-on-live-pigeon-shoots-20126