NONFICTION ARTICLE: 

"Birds Flying 'High'?"

           The main idea in this article is mainly about the rights of birds. There is a sport called "pigeon racing" in the article, where people made hundreds of birds fly from their coops back home, while they are being electronically tracked to see how fast they do it. That was where they found that there were six birds that were "high". In the article it states "Six birds in Belgium tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs (five from painkiller; one for cocaine)." The pigeon races are now a big sport and 15 million dollars in gambling money is at stake each year in the U.S. alone. PETA, an animal rights group, report that 60 percent of the bird get lost or die because of "bad weather, electrical lines, predators, or exhaustion."

           The author wants us to know that people aren't treating pigeons right. These pigeon races are killing a huge portion of the pigeons that are in these races, and that is not fair to the pigeons. In October, pigeons were even HIGH. Pigeons don't buy these drugs. They got ahold of the drugs because of the carelessness of humans. The author does a good job of backing up this lesson, because he/she uses examples of animal-rights groups to inform the reader that these terrible things are happening to pigeons. 

           The author obviously believes that humans are very cruel to pigeons, and after I read the article, I believe that too. Pigeons are being killed in these races. In the races, less than half of the pigeons survive. The pigeons are vulnerable to drugs, predators and other dangerous things that may harm them. People obviously do not care about the pigeons and they throw them around like props, not caring about what happens to them. People who use pigeons for this sport are thoughtless and selfish.