Insults, Feathers Fly At Pa. Pigeon Shoot -- 114 Arrested At An Annual Cultural Clash

HEGINS, Pa. - Over the din of echoing shotgun fire, hundreds of animal-rights demonstrators exchanged volleys of verbal abuse with local residents here yesterday at this small town's annual Labor Day pigeon-shooting competition.

Police arrested 114 people, including one who was charged with assaulting a state trooper. Several smoke bombs were thrown and two robed members of the Ku Klux Klan showed up at what has now become an annual confrontation in the shadow of Mahantango Mountain in Schuylkill County.

There were four reported injuries, state police said, including a protester who hurt an ankle trying to get over a fence onto a shooting field. A bystander narrowly escaped injury when he was knocked aside by the sideview mirror of a pickup truck that rushed down a road lined with protesters.

Yet despite the intensity of feelings, the clash did not seem as severe as it might have been.

Animal-rights organizers had said last week they expected 5,000 demonstrators for what might be the biggest such protest in the country. State Police said about 1,500 protesters showed up.

Still, at times, the tension seemed as thick as the humid, misty atmosphere, especially when protesters in black berets and arm bands swapped insults at close range with local men in flannel shirts and baseball caps.

Last week, one animal-rights leader described the annual battle of Hegins as "an amazing cultural clash."

Yesterday, that seemed understated.

Protesters drank bottled Icelandic spring water.

Their opponents had beer and chewed tobacco.

Some protesters wore blue shirts reading: "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania, unless you're a pigeon in Hegins.'

Some local people wore yellow shirts reading: "Shoot pigeons, not drugs."

Protesters bore signs reading: "Welcome to the great Pennsylvania Holocaust."

But a contending sign read: "Save a pigeon, shoot a protester."

The contest is officially called the Fred Coleman Memorial Shoot and is named for a renowned local marksman. It is held in the town's large park, which has two open grass fields flanking a central picnic grove.

It costs $5 to attend, and $78 to shoot 20 pigeons. The shooting is conducted in the fields on either side of the grove. One field has bleachers, which are packed at the height of the competition.

The pigeons are placed in white boxes. Each shooter takes a turn firing at a series of pigeons as the birds are released individually by ropes attached to the boxes.

Most birds are downed. Some are killed instantly. Others flap about in the grass. When the shooting stops, so-called "trap boys" run out to the field, gather the birds and place them in burlap bags.

Animal-rights activists contend the boys break the pigeon's neck if the bird is not dead.

The Coleman shoot, started in the 1930s, was held without fanfare in this isolated community about 40 miles northeast of Harrisburg until the mid-1980s, when it was "discovered" by the animal-rights movement.

Protesters contend the shooting is cruel amusement. Contestants and locals say it is a sporting tradition.

The buckshot and epithets started flying at about 7:30 a.m. yesterday.

As the first shooters opened fire, protester Myer Taksel stood on a tree stump just behind the bleachers in a dark green jumpsuit with his face painted green and black, commando-style.

"Cowards!" Taksel, 39, of Pittsburgh, bellowed. "Shoot 'em down, cowards! Shoot them right down, filthy cowards. It's what you want, what you live for."

A comrade yelled: "Bloodthirsty Neanderthals!"

Later, during a lull in the action, Taksel said, "We can't allow this to go on. I'm a citizen of this state and this is the most barbarous act that goes on. Not only do the birds get killed but the fact that they make a celebration of it. . . . It's a celebration of death. . . . That's why it's so bad."

Others see it differently.

Allan Brown, 48, of Newark, Del., has been coming to the Hegins shoot for 17 or 18 years. As he and his son, Kent, 28, stood with their shotguns yesterday near the bleachers, they vigorously defended the event and criticized the protesters.

"I think they should mind their own business," the elder Brown said. "They don't understand what the shoot is and what it means to the town. . . . These are all outsiders and it's none of their business."

Allan Brown also defended the use of live pigeons, as opposed to clay. "This is the World Series," he said. "You know where the clay targets are going to go. But you don't know which way the pigeon's going to fly."