Cruel «carrier pigeon sport» will not become German UNESCO cultural heritage

The German UNESCO Commission announced today that carrier pigeon keeping will not be added to the list of German cultural heritage. As justification, the Commission cited, among other things, that the Association of German Carrier Pigeon Breeders had not given sufficient consideration to animal welfare in its application. The animal rights organisation PETA repeatedly pointed out the problem and welcomes the decision not to recognise the cruel “sport” as national intangible cultural heritage.

„Adding German carrier pigeon keeping to the list of national cultural heritage would have been a grave mistake. At the competition and gambling events, the animal welfare act is violated time and again”, said Dr Christian Arleth, lawyer at PETA. “For reasons of prestige or for prize money, breeders and organisers deliberately send many animals to their deaths – this has nothing to do with tradition or love of animals, but is deliberate cruelty to animals.”

PETA appealed to those responsible not to declare cruelty to animals a cultural heritage

North Rhine-Westphalia had nominated the German homing pigeon tradition for inclusion in the list of German cultural heritage. In August, PETA appealed in a letter to UNESCO as well as to the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs and to the North Rhine-Westphalia Office for Intangible Cultural Heritage, urging that the homing pigeon tradition not be added to the nationwide register of intangible cultural heritage of the German UNESCO Commission. More on the background of the application in the report «Despite animal cruelty: homing pigeon tradition to become intangible cultural heritage». The animal rights organisation repeatedly points out that pigeon racing events are cruel to animals, have the character of gambling, and systematically violate applicable animal welfare law.

According to estimates, there are still around 30,000 breeders of so-called “homing pigeons” in Germany, who breed a particularly large number of animals each year and lose them in regional, national and international races. Even according to the breeders' own figures, they lose 20 to 25 percent of their pigeons per flight. Under Section 3 sentence 1 no. 1 of the Animal Welfare Act, it is prohibited to demand of animals performances that exceed their strength. If the birds fall short of expectations and are unsuitable for further breeding, breeders often kill them without stunning, by pulling on the pigeons' necks or twisting their heads until the animals die.