Don Chavez

LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) – Wimbledon came under fire from animal activists on Tuesday for using marksmen to shoot down dive-bombing pigeons.

The tournament employs two hawks to scare away pigeons who had become a pest swooping down on Centre Court and distracting players in the middle of tense matches.

But the hawks failed to keep the pigeons away from the players’ lawn and the open-air media restaurant so marksmen were called in.

Nothing like bird shit on your spotted dick right?

The decision to call in the marksmen was condemned as “cruel and illegal behaviour” by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which complained to the tournament organisers and the police.

“Since the use of marksmen to kill pigeons appears to have been carried out as a first, rather than a last resort, and not out of a concern for public health, but rather because the animals were deemed inconvenient by players, you appear to be in clear violation of the law,” PETA vice-president Bruce Friedrich said.

Does PETA do anything besides go to major sporting events such as Wimbledon and the Belmont Stakes? I might join just to hang out at these events, and to have an outside chance of catching Hep from Pamela Anderson.

This is a great call by the Wimbledon staff though. Why should they mess around with a few lousy pigeons getting in the way of their prestigious event. The only mistake they made was not contacting these guys (warning the audio fires up right away, but the language is SFW) to be marksmen. They would have done it for free. Hell, they probably would have paid to do it.