Verdict against bird torturer within the pigeon breeder mafia

For the first time in Switzerland, a man has been convicted by a court for poisoning a bird of prey using a so-called «Kamikaze» pigeon.

The District Court of Dielsdorf ZH handed down a suspended prison sentence of eleven months and a fine of CHF 4,000 on Monday for multiple counts of animal cruelty and other offences. The verdict is not yet final; however, the prosecution and defence were in agreement regarding the guilty verdict and the sentence.

The Swiss defendant confessed that in mid-August 2015 he had applied a powerful poison — banned in both Switzerland and the EU — to the neck feathers of an unringed pigeon from his loft and then released it. A sparrowhawk that caught the pigeon was killed as a result. This had been the man’s intention.

To this end, he had purchased the poison in Serbia and illegally brought it into Switzerland. In connection with the procurement, importation, and use of the poison, the court found the man guilty of violations of the relevant laws.

And because his pigeon keeping was entirely non-compliant with regulations, an animal welfare offence was added to the charges. His keeping practices are now in order, as was confirmed.

Marked by the proceedings

The single judge reprimanded the «careless handling of highly toxic substances». This had endangered other animals as well as people, as the public prosecutor had made clear beforehand.

The judge refrained from imposing an unconditional prison sentence in light of the 42-year-old defendant's previously unblemished life. The proceedings — including several weeks of pretrial detention — had «obviously left their mark» on him. It was to be hoped that he had learned something.

As the defense attorney stated in his closing argument, his client had simply been looking for ways to protect his pigeons, which had repeatedly been taken by birds of prey. In doing so, he had «lost sight of proportionality».

No trivial offense

According to the prosecutor's remarks, the defendant's act was no trivial offense. He had degraded one animal to a means of killing another — one that was, moreover, a protected species. He had acted with direct intent, the prosecutor said.

In certain pigeon-breeding circles in Switzerland and abroad, the «systematic extermination» of birds of prey is openly demanded and discussed. The breeders fear for good rankings in competitions.

Bird protection organization hopes for a signal effect

As Werner Müller, executive director of Swiss Bird Protection SVS/BirdLife, said after the verdict was announced, there is hope that other pigeon keepers will take this nationwide first ruling in a case of deliberate bird-of-prey poisoning as an occasion to stop.

Reports of poisoned peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, and other birds of prey keep surfacing in Switzerland. The number of unreported cases is high, said Müller, as far from all of them are ever found. The persecution of these protected animals has a marked impact on their populations. For example, only one to two peregrine falcon pairs are now known to exist in the canton of Zurich.