Multiple reports from the last few weeks have identified a slew of pigeons walking around Las Vegas wearing cowboy hats. But no one knows why this is happening.
What’s going on: Social media members have shared videos and photos of these pigeons walking around Las Vegas.
- They’re normal pigeons just with small cowboy hats atop their heads.
- Lofty Hopes, a pigeon rescue group, is looking into the matter. The company told HuffPost that it tracked down one of the pigeons.
- Mariah Hillman, who runs the group, told HuffPost that she believes the birds are cute. But there are safety concerns since the hats are permanently tied to the birds.
- Hillman: “We could wait until they molt it off, wait until he loses his feathers when it gets warm out. Oil neutralizes glue, but then you have the issue of an oily pigeon.”
Flashback: Pictures of the birds went viral last week when a resident filmed one of the pigeons walking around downtown Las Vegas.
- Bobby Lee was the first social media member to post a video of the pigeons. His original view has more than 108,000 views on Facebook, The Hill reports.
- “It got a lot of attention fast,” Lee told The New York Times. “The day after I had a lot of news people texting me and people trying to buy my video.”
Reaction: Other Las Vegas visitors reported seeing the birds, too. The videos have circulated on social media:
The rodeo?: The National Finals Radio was in town last week, which could be the source of the hats. But the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association denied any connection to these birds, according to The New York Times.
The bottomline: Hillman told Vice she believes someone would have had to trap all the pigeons to make this happen.
- “Pigeons mate for life, so if one was removed, this could be breaking up families or leaving babies to starve,” she said. “Also, there’s no way of knowing whether they were released back in the same area where they were caught.”