‘Pigeon’ Pleads With the Queen to Stop Cruel Racing
Flanked by PETA supporters holding signs with the message “Your Majesty, Stop Racing Us to Death!”, a giant beaten and bruised “pigeon” on crutches protested today outside Windsor Castle – where the Queen has been isolating since the start of lockdown.
The action follows a recently released PETA US investigation revealing that pigeons die by the thousands at the South African Million Dollar Pigeon Race.
The shocking footage revealed that the Queen’s pigeons were among those sent to their deaths at the “Olympics of pigeon racing”, which kills thousands of birds each year.
Queen’s Pigeons Die in Smash Death Race
This year, all eight birds sent by the Queen to compete in the gruelling race died.
The Queen’s pigeons died in the quarantine period, during which stressed birds from all over the world are grouped together in the same loft with the potential to transmit diseases, including zoonotic ones, to one another.
Those who survive are forced into long training sessions under the blazing South African sun, in which many become disorientated and die from exhaustion, dehydration, or starvation.
Less than a quarter (22%) of the pigeons who originally enter the race series, which pigeon fanciers call a “slaughter race”, complete it.
What You Can Do
Ask the Queen to end her involvement in pigeon racing and convert her Sandringham loft from a pigeon-breeding mill into a sanctuary for lost, injured, and unwanted pigeons.
