A MAN who admitted a string of animal cruelty charges, including using scissors to cut off parts of adult ducks’ wings permanently preventing them from flying, has been banned from keeping birds for five years.
Jonathan Bowes was also fined £1,500 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs after admitting two counts of pinioning wigeon ducks without anaesthetic. Pinioning is a method of cutting part of a bird’s wing to permanently prevent it from flying. The law states the procedure must only be carried out by a veterinary surgeon and any bird pinioned after the age of 10 days old must be properly anaesthetized.
Bowes (41) is not a veterinary surgeon, and he failed to anaesthetize any of the birds he pinioned. He subsequently admitted to the RSPCA during interview that he pinioned some birds using “any old pair of scissors.”
Bowes, of Main Street, Knipton, also pleaded guilty to three charges of selling or offering for sale wild birds, two counts of causing unnecessary suffering and one of using a spring trap to catch wild birds when he appeared at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court today (Monday).
The RSPCA’s investigation into Bowes came after he had sold injured birds at Melton Market on April 14 last year. Closer inspection by a vet showed the birds had been freshly pinioned and displayed fresh, open wounds.
Inspector Cliff Harrison, from the RSPCA’s special operations unit, said: “This is a particularly disturbing case. To cut through the flesh and bone of adult ducks wings with blunt scissors is calculated and cruel.
“Bowes even explained that he allowed men to shoot ducks flying in onto the pond. If a duck was only ‘winged’ he would retrieve it, pinion it and put it back on the water to take its chances.”
Wow banned for 5 years....... there goes that ass again
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