“Mother Pigeon,” the Artist Fighting to Save NYC’s Urban Birds

Pigeons are disappearing from Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn, and one artist says she knows why. 

New York fixture Tina Piña Trachtenburg — better known as “Mother Pigeon” for her signature feathered gowns — paced back and forth in front of a Bushwick pet store on Saturday, May 24, with a sullen expression. She carried a large painted banner with a message: “They cut their wings, put them in a catapult, and shoot them.” A small group of animal rights activists, who call themselves “dovotees” and “pigilantes,” joined Tratchenburg in the procession.

Trachenburg, a performance and soft sculpture artist devoted to the pigeon form, claims that the owner of the pet supply store Broadway Pigeon and Pet Supplies is abducting the birds from the city’s parks and illegally selling them to shooting ranges in Pennsylvania, where the practice has yet to be outlawed. The pet store’s owner, Michael Scott, Trachenburg alleges, hires people to catch birds, which he sells for $4 to $6 each, according to her own investigations. On Saturday, protesters held signs telling Scott to “flock off.”

Trachenburg acknowledges that she has no definitive proof that Scott or anyone from Broadway Pigeon and Pet Supplies is behind the pigeon disappearances, but claims that she has found nets in the store, seen videos of unidentified netters, and spoken to individuals she said were hired by the store to capture the birds. Hyperallergic made reasonable efforts to get a comment from Pigeons on Broadway; however, upon entering the store, a man inside hurled profane insults and made a physical threat. Michael Scott has denied all allegations.

Heidi Prescott, vice president of Companion Animals for the organization Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States, told Hyperallergic that the Bushwick pigeon store has a “past history” of selling birds to brokers who supply live pigeon shoots.

Last month, a prolific pigeon poacher was arrested for scooping up birds in Manhattan and charged with animal abuse-related violations after being found with 25 caged pigeons in his vehicle, the New York Police Department (NYPD) told Hyperallergic. A spokesperson for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said no pigeon netting cases have been prosecuted in the borough in recent years. NYPD declined to comment on whether Michael Scott or the pet shop was under investigation.

Pigeon shoots are illegal in New York City, and netting the birds is considered animal abuse. The Animal Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association has, in the past, encouraged Pennsylvania lawmakers to outlaw the practice, arguing that the New York birds were being illegally captured and transported against the state’s animal cruelty laws. Pennsylvania is the only state to allow “organized pigeon shoots,” according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund. 

Regardless of who is behind the recent pigeon disappearances, Trachtenburg says she won’t stop advocating for them. The artist relocated to New York City from San Antonio in the 1980s with hopes of making a living by creating art in some form, she told Hyperallergic. When she first moved to the city, she took an interest in observing street birds, a hobby that led her to make and sell pouches and sculptures fashioned after urban animals for a living. Trachtenburg has also illustrated and written a children’s book and hosts a puppet show on her YouTube channel.

Both of Trachtenburg’s parents were artists of Mexican descent, a heritage that informs her gowns. Mexican folk art, including the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and religious iconography, is among her inspirations, Thachtenburg said. 

“I don’t enjoy going to museums or galleries,” Trachtenburg said. “I love [art] when it’s on the street. I love someone who has a stack of paintings, and they’re sitting on the street. I love a performance that’s on the street. I like it to be spontaneous and not predictable or sterile.”

Nine years ago, Trachtenburg said, a flock she cared for in Washington Square Park was netted, and she held a vigil for the birds. Animal cruelty law enforcement got involved, Trachtenburg said, but the case didn’t go anywhere. It was then that she said she went “undercover” at Michael Scott’s pet shop.

She dressed up as a nun, entered the shop, and released pigeons out the back door, Trachtenburg said. Soon, the store caught on, she said, and she never did it again.

Trachtenburg’s husband, Jason, who works in the theater world and was wearing an identical pigeon gown at Saturday’s protest, told Hyperallergic that the action outside Broadway Pigeon and Pet Supplies was a mixture of “politics and entertainment.” 

“If it’s not visually exciting, no one wants to see that,” Jason said. 

A visually calamitous scene did, in fact, unfold. At one point, the pet store blasted Sean Paul’s “I Don’t Fuck With You” on speakers facing the protesters. During the song, a man — an apparent supporter of Scott — exited the store with a box of live pigeons in a box labeled “basura” (“trash” in Spanish). Several reporters, including two documentary crews, captured every moment.

The pet store supporter then proceeded to take each bird out of the box and kiss it, while animal rights activists — some dressed in bird costumes — demanded to know where he would take them. The man said he was bringing them to his home in the Bronx. Obscenities were hurled in both directions. The pigilantes wore chicken hats, carried pigeon puppets, and held signs worshipping the urban creatures. Scott supporters carried their own signs, accusing the pigeon advocates of slandering the store’s reputation. 

Among the most vocal protesters was Isabel Keener, who said she met Trachtenburg while directing a film that required a flock of pigeons for a climactic romance scene. Trachtenburg had trained a flock of pigeons in Maria Hernandez Park to flutter on cue, but when the crew went to film a second take, the birds were nearly gone. 

“There used to be 200; I go [back] and there’s like 30,” Keener said. Another protester, Max, a tattoo artist and close friend of Trachtenburg, showed Hyperallergic Mother Pigeon-inspired flash ink designs. Many of the protesters were friends of Trachtenburg, or friends of friends.

The group vowed to return in the coming weeks.

“I prefer to be stitching, and quietly living my peaceful pigeon dove life,” Trachtenburg told Hyperallergic in an interview ahead of Saturday’s protest. “This is not what I expected to be doing at this point in my life, but I’m doing it because, hopefully, we can make an impact.”