Yarrawonga has celebrated coach Bridget Cassar’s 250th club game with a thumping 67-20 win over Myrtleford.
Wodonga Raiders’ Brooke Pryse tries her best to stop Albury’s Claire Wilson. The Tigers’ attacking spearhead grabbed 29 goals in the 49-32 win.
“I didn’t know anything about it until I was told on Thursday night,” Cassar said.
“None of us knew anything about it.”
Raiders’ Courtney Hillier.
The premiership coach was presented with a token of the club’s appreciation for her years of service.
Raiders’ Georgette Meunier passes the ball in her team’s 17-goal loss to Albury. Meunier was one of the visitors’ best.
“It definitely played a role in the lead-up to the game and we were happy to play well for ‘Bridg’,” captain Annalise Grinter said.
Cassar will play her 200th A grade game later this year.
In a battle of last year’s top and bottom outfits, the Pigeons had the match wrapped up at quarter-time, bolting to a 12-goal lead.
Cassar was outstanding, posting 36 goals, almost doubling the Saints’ output.
Abbey Jones chipped in with 16, while former Goulburn Valley star Gemma O’Sullivan impressed with 15 goals.
Jayanna Sharp was one of three debutants for the Pigeons.
Elsewhere, Albury started its campaign to return to finals with a 17-goal win over Wodonga Raiders.
The Tigers built on their lead in each quarter, racking up a 49-32 win.
Claire Wilson posted 29 goals and Jess Fisher-Curnow 20.
Wilson was terrific for the home team, while Brigetta Hart also played well.
Courtney Hiller and Georgette Meunier were the visitors’ best.
Albury finished second-last in 2016, while Raiders were seventh.
North Albury has toppled Corowa-Rutherglen by 10 goals, 56-46.
Last year’s Rising Star nominee Grace Senior equalled Cassar’s output, grabbing the highest individual score of round one with 36 goals.
Hoppers’ star recruit, and indeed one of the best signings of the summer, Emily Browne was the best player on the court, while Kirby Hilton played a strong supporting role.
Wangaratta Rovers has toppled Wodonga by 13 goals.
Wodonga has undergone a transformation in recent years, losing star players Rebecca Cameron and Liona Edwards.
The club finished sixth last year and Rovers fifth after the home and away season.
And Lavington has started in style with an eight-goal win over Wangaratta.
The Panthers racked up a 43-35 victory.
Alison Meani top-scored with 17, while former Toni Wilson medallist Sarah Senini (14) and Skye Hiller (12) also made double figures.
Amanda Umanski equalled Meani’s effort of 17.
Wangaratta will now meet Wangaratta Rovers.
The Pies finished third after the regular season, working their way into a league force after years of trying.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A Scottish man has been filmed apparently punching a pigeon after his pals ‘tried to get him to kiss’ the bird .
The Snapchat video – shared on multiple Facebook pages – has been viewed thousands of times and attracted criticism for promoting ‘animal abuse’.
The shirtless man is seen lying down in the clip as his pals try to push a pigeon into his face in apparent attempt to get him to kiss it.
Amid much laughter and music playing, the man clenches his fist and threatens to punch the bird.
One says: “I bet you don’t crack it”.
Suddenly, the man is filmed striking the bird.
The pigeon reacts in shock and the room erupts.
The clip was shared on Glaswegian.
Some claimed it was animal cruelty while others said the boys were just having a laugh.
Mike Kelly wrote: “Horrible b******.”
Meanwhile, Peter Collins said on the Glasgow Gospel page: “Animal cruelty isn’t funny.”
However, Derek Santini posted: “All the pigeon lovers getting very angry on here.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
OKALOOSA ISLAND — A gray cloud flies low every day over a sun-kissed beachgoer near the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier.
It’s not a cloud filled with sadness or rain, but one made up of a flock of feathery friends flying in to greet “the pigeon man.”
Resting under a deep blue umbrella with a thick coat of sunscreen on his nose, Dayn Lacke of Cinco Bayou, as he’s formally known, spends his days in a lawn chair soaking up the sunshine. Lacke said it was five years ago when he threw a cracker in the sand and began his passion for pigeons.
“I come out here more than the lifeguards,” Lacke said. “I come out here every day. It could be three hours or it could be all day long. Five years ago I saw a pretty white pigeon and started feeding that one crackers. She got friendly with me. We called her Angel.”
Lacke, a semi-retired architectural illustrator, now has up to 120 pigeons he feeds daily. He said you’ll rarely see a seagull among the group because he only buys wild bird seed, which is the healthiest option for the pigeons.
“I go through about 35 pounds of bird seed each week,” Lacke said. “The bird seed is too small for the seagulls to pick up. In the mornings, they (pigeons) will normally meet me on the boardwalk and line up on the handrails. I then walk through a gondola of pigeons.”
MooMoo, LuLu, Powder, Brownie, Baby and Speck are among Lacke’s favorite birds that he has named. He needs only to call their names for the birds to fly and land on this index finger.
“I formed bonds with roughly 30 of the pigeons,” Lacke said. “I named those, but you can’t name them all.”
Lacke said he asks other beachgoers only one thing: “Do not chase my birds.”
“I would say 95 percent of people walk by with a smile on their face,” he said.
Five percent are dumbfounded or grossed out or freaked out. The pigeons are very tame. When people chase them, it can break their feet, he said.
“I see a lot of people ducking and diving when the pigeons are flying,” Lacke added. “It’s not like they’ll run into you. They’re fine navigators. As long as you’re not a window, I think you’re okay.”
Jenna Testa, a wildlife health technician at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge on Okaloosa Island, said pigeons are a form of rock dove that is not native to the Emerald Coast. Although helping aid non-native species could have a direct impact on the native ones, Testa said Lacke has also helped refuge workers untangle and aid many native birds on the beach.
“He has a big heart for the birds,” Testa said. “He has a good heart for animals in general.”
Lacke said he also is available to people walking by if they need information or a helping hand. As far as the birds, he said they will continue to be fed.
“If someone else can’t handle it, I’ll keep doing it,” he said. “Even if I come out here just to feed them and then leave, they’ll keep getting fed.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
A pair of hapless pigeons had to be rescued by firefighters – after they were seen dangling from the top of one of Cardiff’s tallest hotels.
The two birds were spotted hanging precariously by their feet after getting tangled in netting on the fifth floor of the Hilton Hotel in the city centre.
RSPCA Cymru were called to the scene, along with support crews from South Wales Fire and Rescue Service .
With support from hotel staff firefighters were eventually able to free both birds from the netting and release them back into the wild.
One pigeon was returned to the wild immediately while the other was released following a short spell in veterinary care.
RSPCA inspector Sophie Daniels said: “Fortunately the pigeons were rescued and are now safe and well back in the wild.
“We’re grateful to the firefighters from South Wales Fire and Rescue Service for their support in completing this rescue, which shows what we can achieve working together to protect local animals.
She added: “Incidents like this act as an important reminder that external netting can act as an obstacle to wild birds and it’s great that the hotel will be monitoring this closely to help protect the nation’s wildlife.”
Marie Fagan, general manager of the Hilton Cardiff, said: “It is situations like these which show how vital the RSPCA’s work is to protecting our animals and wildlife.
“We worked closely with both the RSPCA and fire and rescue services to help them release the pigeons and we would like to thank them for their efforts.
“We are thrilled that both pigeons were safely rescued.”
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
Tourists sailing down the highways toward Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1955 would have been filled with gleeful anticipation. Numerous resorts and roadside offerings were on offer to sate their recreational lust: They could drop into the Arkansas Alligator Farm and mingle with the toothsome reptiles, ooh and awe at celebrity likenesses at the Josephine Tussaud Wax Museum, or delight in the animated miniatures of Tiny Town. Or they could go to the newly opened I.Q. Zoo and watch Casey the chicken play baseball, a duck play the drums, and a rabbit dunk a basketball, to name just a few oddities.
I.Q. Zoo was the brainchild of a psychologist couple, Marian and Keller Breland, who not too long before had been working alongside the famous psychologist B.F. Skinner to train pigeons to pilot the first “smart bombs” for the United States government.
Born in 1920 in Minnesota, Marian Kruse was whip-smart, with dark hair and a gentle smile. Her parents affectionately called her “Mouse,” a nickname that stuck for life. Young Marian loved Black Beauty and begged her dad to move to a farm.
“As a child, I was terrifically interested in animals,” Marian told an interviewer in 2000*. “I was also, although I didn’t know it at the time, interested in the humane treatment of animals.”
After graduating high school as valedictorian, Marian landed a spot in a University of Minnesota psychology class taught by Skinner, the influential psychologist who earned fame (and a long teaching post at Harvard) for his theories, notably “operant conditioning,” the idea that free will is an illusion and behavior is dictated by the negative and positive results it produces. Marian became a favorite student of his; she proofed Skinner’s writings, and even babysat his kids.
Marian was zipping to the health center for treatment from a lab rat bite when she collided with fellow psychology student Keller Breland. Within a year she would graduate summa cum laude and marry Keller. The Brelands were both trusted assistants and graduate students of Skinner’s when he recruited them in 1942 to work on a top-secret government assignment: Project Pelican.
Project Pelican didn’t involve pelicans, but pigeons, a bird Skinner was fond of using in his research. Skinner believed that by following the principles of operant conditioning he could teach them to pilot bombs on the World War II battlefield. The process began with three pigeons encased in the nose-cone of a bomb.
“They had been taught to peck at a target shown on a ground-glass screen in exchange for food,” wrote John N. Marr in his essay Marian Breland Bailey: The Mouse Who Reinforced. “If the bomb deviated from the target, the pigeon’s’ pecks at the screen would transmit signals to correct the bomb’s heading.”
In 1943, Skinner went to Washington to show off his deadly flock.
“They opened the pigeon chamber and saw three pigeons pecking away,” said Marian. “This caused them several minutes of disbelief, I’d say.”
The pigeons were never deployed. “A variety of reasons had been given,” wrote Marr. “but none related to the birds’ behavior.”
Despite the fate of Project Pelican, a light had been flipped on in the minds of Marian and Keller. If they could train a pigeon to guide a bomb, they reasoned, they could probably train other animals to do extraordinary things. And if they could do that, there was probably money to be made.
They started training animals at their home, and then on a small farm in Minnesota, applying ideas gathered from studying with Skinner. The common practice in animal training was to intimidate and dominate animals; dogs and other creatures were punished for not doing what their owners wanted through physical and verbal reprimands. The Kellers’ took a much gentler approach: they ignored behavior they didn’t want and rewarded behavior they did, typically with food.
This worked remarkably well. Eventually, they started training animals on behalf of General Mills, whose labs they had used when training their bomb birds. Enter the crowd-pleasing chicken: The Brelands trained hens to perform stunts that could be used to promote chicken feed all over the country. Breland chickens played pianos and “asked” for food by pushing a button. They trained a cow to “take quizzes” by pressing light-up “yes” and “no” targets, they trained a pig named Priscilla to knock over a stack of dishes. Word of their incredible success spread and they began training animals for television and film, including Buck the Bunny, a rabbit who starred in commercials for Coast Federal Savings, picking up coins in his mouth and dropping them into a bank.
In 1955, they opened I.Q. Zoo and travelers far and wide were introduced to the wonders of the Breland menagerie. “There is no punishment involved in the training at all,” read an ad for the zoo. “Once they are trained, they will not forget, and are happy and eager to perform.” Visitors, and the media, were enchanted.
“At a little farm near Hot Springs, Ark., I saw a chicken do arithmetic problems and a rooster knock out a tune on a piano. I played a pinball game against a turkey, and invariably lost. I watched a hamster imitate Tarzan on a trapeze, a rabbit play baseball and a dozen chickens swing baseball bats,” reported a Popular Mechanicswriter in 1953.
As their success grew, so did the pool of animals they trained. They taught a reindeer to operate a printing press, they trained parrots to balance on soccer balls and rollerskate, goats to push baby carriages, and a cow to play the harmonica. They trained cats, raccoons, squirrels and even dolphins. Chickens remained a perennial favorite, they “did math”, walked on tightropes and played tic tac toe with visitors. Under the banner of their business, Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE), they also sold coin-operated displays that housed trained chickens, and these were scattered throughout the country.
Such a contraption in Manhattan’s Chinatown captivated New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, who wrote an ode to the chicken in 1999. “When I tell the chicken story,” he writes, “I always point out that nearly all the people I take down there have precisely the same response to the prospect of playing ticktacktoe with a chicken. After looking the situation over, they say, “The chicken gets to go first!””
Ten years after the opening of I.Q. Zoo, the Brelands had grown supremely confident in their unusual skills.
“I wouldn’t hesitate to sign a contract today to produce a thousand white rats to play tiddly winks,” Keller told the Associated Press in 1962. He would never have the opportunity to accept this challenge before his death, three years later in 1965.
Bereft, Marian also needed help running ABE and the I.Q. Zoo. Help manifested in the form of Bob Bailey, a man who had been training dolphins on behalf of the Navy.
As the Breland’s star was ascending, Bailey was working as a researcher at UCLA’s medical school. One day he spied an ad; the Navy needed a director to head up their new dolphin training program.
“How I ever got the job to this day I do not know,” said Bailey in a 2016 talk. “I had never trained a dolphin in my entire life!”
At a desert base in California, Bailey trained dolphins to detect mines and carry messages and equipment. Among the consultants he called in to help him with the task were the Brelands. And when he grew frustrated with the Navy’s obsession with learning how to communicate with dolphins, he accepted a job at ABE in 1965. After Keller died, Bob took on many of his responsibilities. And Marian and Bob continued to work on behalf of the government.
In addition to the I.Q. Zoo, Bailey told Smithsonian magazine, the team had a special set-up for training animals run covert missions.
“We had a 270-acre farm,” he said. “We built towns. Like a movie set, there’d be only fronts.”
Marian and Bob trained boobies to fly through mazes, pigeons to thwart ambushes, ravens to plant bugs, dogs to locate mines, and cats outfitted with recording equipment to surveil people.
The extent to which these animals were actually used is obscured behind government secrecy, but Bailey told Smithsonian that “We got the ravens into places. We got the cats into places.”
Marian and Bob married in 1976 and ran the I.Q. Zoo and ABE until 1990. Marian passed away in 2001; Bob continues to teach and consult on animal training. The Brelands’ and Bailey’s helped popularize the notion of training through positive reinforcement, not yelling and hitting. Among the other methods they brought to the mainstream was the use of the clicker, a much beloved tool for dog trainers today, including those who work in dog cognition labs.
In his love letter to the Chinatown chicken, Trillen described a 1999 rendezvous with Marian and Bob in California. Both “showed up in matching Hawaiian shirts, as if to underline their status as retired”. But they were nominally retired, because they had just arrived from teaching a class to guide-dog trainers in the methods of operant conditioning. And behind their vehicle they hauled a trailer full of their training tool of choice—chickens.
About Pigeon Patrol:
Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products four years in a row.
