bkdelong

Why am I not surprised? They're often referred to as rats of the city skies. They huddle in great numbers in city parks where they get fat off various foodstuffs littering the area, they poo everywhere - especially on buildings where they perch and sometimes they waddle so slow, they can't get out of your way until the last minute.

That's no reason to torture them...

I received an email from my friend Brian Martin aka Jericho from Attrition.org about his trip to BlackHat/Def Con which I missed for the first time in 5 years. He pointed me to a section of his site where he has images of a rather sickly pigeon loosing its feathers. He explains the story in this note to the hotel in which he stayed.

From: security curmudgeon <jericho@attrition.org>

To: Keylargocasino@lvcm.com, sales@keylargocasino.com

Cc: NevadaSPCA@aol.com

Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 20:05:34 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Report of animal abuse

My girlfriend and I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, NV. While
there, we stayed at the Quality Inn Key Largo Hotel/Casino. Shortly after
arriving, we noticed several pigeons that were rather mangled and had many
missing or damaged feathers. The worst of the group was limping and
clearly could not fly at all due to the damage to his wings and feathers.
We found out a couple days later from a staff member of the hotel that the
damage was done due to hotel cook staff throwing hot cooking grease on the
birds "because they hated them".

The staff member told us that several birds had died during the incident,
and several others were hurt badly. During the day, the wounded pigeons
can be found in trees near the swimming pool where they have found a
source of water. At night, the most injured of the batch stays in a tree
on the east side of the building (the middle of the three trees along the
hotel). He can not fly into the tree, but he is able to walk up to a
branch where he sleeps.

While I understand that many people do not like pigeons and consider them
a nuisance, throwing hot cooking grease on them is inexcusable. The staff
member we spoke with said the employees responsible for the abuse were
"yelled at" and nothing more. If this is how Key Largo responds to animal
cruelty, rest assured we will not stay there again.

Brian Martin

Denver, CO

ps: Nevada SPCA, I can provide pictures of the wounded pigeon if
necessary.

Here are those pictures - I'm sure they will make you just as furious & disgusted as I am. Fellow bloggers, do your duty and spread the word. You can find detailed contact information at the Casino's Web site including email addresses, snail mail, phone numbers and fax numbers.

You can also find contact information for the Nevada ASPCA at the bottom of their home page however they recommend a complaint be made to Clark County Animal Control which also has emails at the bottom of their page. Finally, there's always the papers, (Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas Review-Journal) or the television news, (KLAS, KOLO, KVBC, or KVVU).