(Altiplano, Granada) The ecologist movement, Ecologistas en Accion, has reported the parish priest of Puebla de Don Fadrique for ‘taking out pigeons’ with a pellet gun… The said priest, Father Juan Luis Garcia Rodriguez, admits to killing a couple and turning them into broth, but not with a pellet gun.
The pesky or persecuted pigeons, depending on the accused or the accusers point of view, lived in the church tower, before changing their abode to the priest’s cooking pot, that is.
For those of you who don’t know where Puebla de Don Fadrique is, it can be best described as the most distant town in the province from the coast, right up in the altiplano de Granada, or the ‘Granada Plateau,’ where the province borders with Murcia.
Anyway, back to the alleged gun-toting priest and the diminishing pigeon population… The priest remembers that he climbed up into the tower with some young boys… to scare the air-army of pigeons that inhabited it and neighbouring roofs. It should be remembered that pigeons droppings, apart from harbouring all sorts of germs, are very corrosive – ask Lord Nelson!
He says that neither he nor the boys that accompanied him used a pellet gun, but that they managed to catch a couple and scare off the rest. Father Juan Luis said that he popped the ‘prizes’ in a pot and boiled them into a broth, which in his own words, “was good enough to raise the dead.” Before committing them to their watery end, he claims that he checked that they were not a protected species nor belonged to anybody… other than his pot, that is.
Well, before long his mobile was ringing its battery out as astounded villagers expressed their outrage or support.
Meanwhile, back with the ecologists, they claim that he takes pop-shots at the roosting birds at night, accompanied by minors. According to Spanish law, air-rifles cannot be used in public, nor used to kill things; you can use them for target practice in private or public shooting galleries. In other words, you cannot dispatch birds to the next life with them, not even by giving them their last rites beforehand. You even need a rudimentary fire-arm licence.
The ecologists claim that the firing of the said weapon at night within the village is very dangerous, although many readers might consider this a slight exaggeration…
The conservative Mayor of the town, Mariano García, thinks that the ecologists complaint is ridiculous: “It’s nonsense to claim that he went up into the bell tower with the choirboys to kill pigeons with an airgun,” unaware perhaps that a priest disappearing into the bell tower accompanied by choirboys is an alarming thought and if it were to kill pigeons – even with a flame thrower – people would heave a sigh of relief, perhaps.
(News: Don Fadrique, Altiplano, Granada, Andalucia)