Prosecutor’s Office, Police Department Nab Awards for Pigeon Racing Raid

Tainan — Compassionate Action awards are on the way from PETA to the Tainan District Prosecutors Office and the Tainan City Police Department for rescuing more than 700 birds from a pigeon racing gambling ring in a raid inspired by a PETA investigation that revealed bird death rates as high as 99% during ocean races. Police also arrested six employees and brought 19 other people in for questioning. This is the first time police have seized pigeons before a race, where the birds often fall victim to drowning, extreme weather, raptors, electric lines, foul play, and exhaustion after being forced to fly to their home lofts from the middle of the ocean. 

 “Thanks to the help of the prosecutor’s office and police department, hundreds of pigeons have been spared the misery of flying to their deaths for a barbaric blood sport,” says PETA Asia Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA is calling on other jurisdictions to follow Tainan authorities’ lead by shutting down cruel racing operations that exploit pigeons’ homing abilities and gamble with their lives.” 

PETA’s five-month undercover investigation into Taiwanese pigeon racing in 2013 exposed a multibillion-dollar illegal gambling industry—which resulted in prison sentences for multiple pigeon-racing club officials and hefty fines for more than 230 pigeon racers across three different clubs—in addition to a grueling system of ocean races, where pigeons are crammed into crates and shipped out to sea over a series of seven weekly races. Survival rates of 1% or less per series are common, while pigeons who fail to make it back within qualifying time often have their necks snapped. In the autumn 2020 races, clubs in Southern Taiwan entered 65,000 birds—and only three birds finished the seven-race series. 

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETAAsia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

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