Hualien man arrested for hunting neighbor's pet pigeons

Taipei, April 23 (CNA) A man who allegedly shot and planned to eat two of his neighbor's pet pigeons with an air gun in a residential area of Hualien's Ji'an Township has been arrested for public endangerment, local authorities said Wednesday.

The Hualien Police Bureau said it had received a report last Thursday from a 70-year-old man, surnamed Lo (羅), claiming that two of his pet pigeons had been shot to death while outside of their enclosure between feeding times.

Surveillance video footage from Lo's property showed that a man appeared to have fired the shots in the direction of his house, which caused Lo and his neighbors to fear for their safety, police said.

After reviewing the footage, officers from the bureau's Nanhua Police Station identified the shooter as another man in his 70s who lived nearby, surnamed Lin (林).

In the video, Lin can be seen arriving near the house on a motorcycle, and then firing at the birds as they perched on a telephone pole in front of Lo's house, police said.

After obtaining a warrant from Hualien District Court, police searched Lin's house, where they found and seized an air rifle as evidence.

Lin told the officers he had no quarrel with Lo, and had simply wanted to shoot the pigeons to eat them. The pigeons happened to fall onto Lo's house after being shot, making it impossible to retrieve them, Lin said.

Upon further testing, it was determined that the muzzle energy on Lin's gun was within legal limits, police said.

However, as Lin's shooting of the weapon in the direction of Lo's home constituted a threat to public safety, he was referred to the Hualien District Prosecutors Office on suspicion of public endangerment and causing property damage, police said.