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Contact us SHARK Newsletter September 19, 2012 Join our Email list
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The Legal Battle Against Pigeon Shoots Moves Forward!
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Pennsylvania's live pigeon shoots are an affront to everything that good and decent people hold true. They are truly anti-life; the mass slaughter of living, feeling beings for the pleasure that suffering brings to a few.
Unfortunately, those few who revel in this killing are wealthy and are backed by the NRA. Through fear and money, pigeon shooters and their supporters have kept the legislature at bay and pocketed more than one corrupt District Attorney.
The battle to stop pigeon shoots is a truly massive and daunting endeavor, but SHARK has not wavered in our defense of these innocent animals. Though we have been shot at, assaulted, have had our rights violated, we continue to march forward.
A critical battleground to stop these shoots is the legal system. When Pennsylvania Humane Police Officer Johnna Seeton filed animal cruelty charges against the Pike Township Sportsmen's Association for violating animal cruelty law, Berks County District Attorney John Adams (who has received campaign donations from a pro-pigeon shooting PAC) directly interjected himself into the case and forced the charges to be dropped (see
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Emily was shot at a pigeon shoot, rescued seven days later, but died from her injuries and emaciation.
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video here with more information about this).
In response to this, Officer Johnna Seeton filed a "Writ of Mandamus" against DA Adams. This legal action, if successful, would compel DA Adams to obey the law and allow the charges to be heard in court. SHARK wholeheartedly agreed with this idea - and so we put our money where our mouth was and funded the lawsuit.Recently, a sharply divided Commonwealth Court ruled 4-3 against the Mandamus action. But this wasn't the loss you might think it was, as the dissenting opinion was strong, and even the majority had important things to say about Adams and pigeon shooting. "It is truly shocking that live, not clay, pigeons are catapulted into the air for target practice," stated the majority in their opinion.From the dissenters: "District Attorney Adams' decision to withdraw the Citations was based, not on his "prosecutorial discretion," but on an error of law.""The mishandling of wounded and injured pigeons at a live pigeon shoot is criminally actionable."
You can read the entire decision HERE.
Because of the split decision and the strength of the dissent, Officer Seeton intends to appeal the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. SHARK is backing her and funding the legal expense for the appeal.
SHARK undertook this because we understand that to win this war we need to fight on every front. We are in the woods, our cameras facing off against their guns. We fight the NRA and those legislators who bow down to them. And now we fight them in court.
The cost of this critical and necessary legal action has been and will continue to be enormous. We need your help - please consider making a generous donation so that together we will stand and win this battle to save hundreds of thousands of lives.
You can donate online HERE, or mail a check to: SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness PO Box 28 Geneva, IL 60134 Tel: 630-557-0176
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This bird was shot at a live pigeon shoot. With her last breath she flew to our cameraman, and then she died.
For her memory, and for the sake of the thousands more who will suffer her fate, please support us in our efforts to end live pigeon shoots.
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Over the past few months, Joseph Solana, owner of the Wing Pointe canned hunt club, has spent thousands of dollars in physical labor and equipment to cut down trees and pile them up along their border, all in a futile effort to block SHARK's view from public property of their illegal pigeon shoots.
SHARK was at the three-day r
The latest attempt to stop us was at the three-day Labor Day Shoot held at Wing Pointe. In the end, there were no impediments at all to our filming the shooters and the pigeons they mercilessly slaughtered. Not only did we have our video cameras rolling, but we launched our Angel remote controlled aircraft numerous times.
You can see footage taken at the Labor Day pigeon shoot in this new video where SHARK challenges the NRA on their support of pigeon shooting.
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SHARK Challenges NRA Members
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In August, SHARK sent a letter to Pennsylvania Police Commissioner Frank Noonan regarding the escalating, dangerous violence towards SHARK and lack of proper response from law enforcement. After a month, SHARK sent another letter and still no response.
Earlier this summer, Pennsylvania Humane Police Officer Johnna Seeton and other Humane Police Officers requested a meeting with Commissioner John Noonan to discuss the illegality of the live pigeon shoots and was refused.
SHARK has sent a dozen letters to South Carolina Colleton County Sheriff George A. Malone, South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, and Governor Nikki Haley regarding the unwarranted harassment and intimidation that SHARK endured when in South Carolina during their illegal pigeon shoot. SHARK is also waiting to hear about the investigation of the illegal shootdown of our Angel aircraft. Not surprisingly, no response from any official in South Carolina.
Different states, same illegal issue, same corrupting influence - the National Rifle Association. For more information, see NRAcruelty.com |
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Last year, SHARK exposed that Wing Pointe's Quail's Nest Restaurant has been found to be regularly out of compliance with food safety standards by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services. Yuk!
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Who Wants to Go Out to Eat?
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Quail's Nest closed a short time later. A few months later, the restaurant reopened briefly and is now closed again. Good riddance!
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Kindest Regards,
Steve Hindi and Your SHARK Team
"Kindness and compassion towards all living beings is a mark of a civilized society. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and rodeos are all cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves." - Cesar Chavez, civil rights and labor leader, founder of the United Farm Workers
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