They want prosecutors to stop letting pigeon poachers fly the coop!
Animal advocates gathered at a rally in Manhattan Wednesday to demand District Attorney Alvin Bragg to crack down on illegal pigeon catchers — after a serial poacher was caught trying to once again capture a flock of the birds last week.
Dwayne Daley, 67, was busted caging more than 25 pigeons in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village on April 30, allegedly with plans to sell them hunters in Pennsylvania to use in target practice.
But Daley — who served no jail time for the animal cruelty crime as the crime is not bail eligible — should have been punished more harshly, according to bird lovers who flocked to the High Line for the demonstration.
“The enforcement is a joke,” said John Di Leonardo, executive director of the animal advocacy group Humane Long Island.
Stephen Yang
“I think [offenders] need to get fines and jail time. Specifically jail time — they need to be afraid to do this,” he said.
Di Leonardo said another pigeon poacher was busted in Jackson Heights, Queens Sunday in part because “lackadaisical prosecution” has failed to deter the growing crime.
“The pigeon is the bird and symbol of New York City. This inhumane practice must be stopped once and for all,” said Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels.
“It is appalling to know that we permit kidnappers to come in and scoop them up and there are no consequences for those actions,” said Sliwa — who spoke at the rally to roughly a dozen supporters.
Tina Trachtenburg, a pigeon caregiver and advocate, added: “[Our] plea is that pigeon poachers become jailbirds and pigeons fly free.”
Daley was charged with torturing, injuring and not feeding an animal. He is known to police for kidnapping birds and selling them for target practice.
He was arrested while in custody May 1 for separate charges linked to an assault in which he allegedly punched a man in the face in Brooklyn in February 2021.
It’s illegal to remove any animal from a New York City park, according to the Parks Department, which said it couldn’t confirm an uptick in pigeon poaching cases.
The Manhattan DA’s office said: “Our office takes allegations of animal abuse extremely seriously, and the defendant in this case was charged and prosecuted for his conduct.”
