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Pigeon King scam, 7-year prison term for Galbraith.
KITCHENER – The folksy force behind a huge pigeon-breeding scam targeting conservative religious communities was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison.
Arlan Galbraith, 67, was convicted of fraud for luring hundreds of Canadian and U.S. farmers – mostly Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites – to raise birds at lucrative buy-back prices.
Investors lost an estimated $20 million when Pigeon King International, based in offices in a Waterloo commercial plaza, collapsed under its own weight in the summer of 2008.
Galbraith, who got his hands dirty and often did media interviews in overalls, insisted the eight-year-old business was a legitimate venture that was sabotaged by critics jealous of his success.
But after a month-long trial in Superior Court in Kitchener at which he entertained onlookers while representing himself, jurors concluded otherwise in December.
They accepted the prosecution’s contention the business was an unsustainable pyramid scheme that required more and more new investors to pay existing ones.
Crown attorney Lynn Robinson, who argued for up to 12 years in prison, called a former salesperson for the company to explain why Galbraith targeted traditional communities for sales.
Bill Top, who later resigned and actively warned people about the pigeon scam, said he once heard Galbraith and his former wife ridiculing those groups for their simple lifestyles.
“The strongest comment he made … was they were aliens and he didn’t know why they would live that way in this day and age,” Top told the hearing. “He thought it was a joke.
“It was business. It was money in his pocket. I don’t know if there was a
While promoting the scheme, Galbraith portrayed himself as the saviour of the family farm for giving farmers an opportunity to make money breeding pigeons.
Under the terms of five or 10-year contracts, he agreed to buy all the offspring back at rates virtually guaranteeing lucrative profits.
Early investors were told he intended to sell pigeons to hobbyists interested in them for sport.
But by the end of the scheme, Galbraith’s pitch had morphed into establishing a vast network of breeders to process baby pigeons for meat and rival the chicken industry.
Although he had plans drawn up for a plant in a remote area of northern Ontario, it was still years away from being built.
In the meantime, Galbraith’s obligations under the buy-back deals had mushroomed to more than $350 million.
Had investors been found to cover that amount, jurors were told, the commitment over the next decade would have been more than $3 billion.
Despite bringing in $42 million in the last four years, Galbraith also went personally bankrupt after the collapse of the company. As a result, there was no hope of restitution for victims.
“There is no money at the end of the rainbow to give back to these folks,” Robinson said.
After ignoring pointed advice from judges and representing himself at the complicated trial, Galbraith finally hired a lawyer for the sentencing.
David North stressed Galbraith didn’t live a lavish lifestyle or sock away money, redistributing it instead to other investors. Farmers who got in on the deal early actually made money.
Arguing for a sentence of less than six years, he also said Galbraith has lost up to 40 pounds since going into custody following his conviction.
“It would be a crushing sentence for someone who is quickly becoming an old man,” North said of the prosecution’s call for nine to 12 years. “And to what end, to what end?”
Looking gaunt and worn in a dark suit hanging off his frame, Galbraith was uncharacteristically silent when given that opportunity to address Justice Gerry Taylor before the prison term was imposed.
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Homing pigeon mystery solved. According to Keeton, a mystery of pigeon released at Castor Hill and the town of Weedsport consistently took the same wrong turn when they departed. Meanwhile, birds that were released from Jersey Hill tended to head off in random directions, but with one exception: all of the birds that departed from the hill on 13 August 1969 returned home successfully having taken the correct bearing. Explaining that Keeton had already ruled out the possibility of a disturbance in the local magnetic field, Hagstrum recalls, ‘Bill asked if we geologists had an idea what might be going on at these sites’.
Several years after Keeton’s lecture Hagstrum came up with a possible solution to the problem when he read that pigeons can hear incredibly low frequency ‘infrasound’. Explaining that infrasound — which can generated by minute vibrations in the planet surface caused by waves deep in the ocean — travels for thousands of kilometers, Hagstrum wondered whether homing pigeons are listening for the distinctive low frequency rumble of their loft area to find their bearing home. In which case, birds that could not hear the infrasound signal, because the release site was shielded from it in some way, could not get their bearing and would get lost. Hagstrum decided to investigate the meteorological conditions on the days of unsuccessful releases to find out if there was something in the air that could explain the pigeons’ disorientation. In The Journal of Experimental Biology, he publishes his discovery that Keeton’s lost pigeons could not hear the infrasound signal from their home loft because it was diverted by the atmosphere.
However, to make this discovery, Hagstrum had to first reconstruct the atmospheric conditions on the days when pigeons had been released from the three locations. Having successfully installed a complex acoustics program — HARPA — with the help of USGS computer scientist Larry Baker and using accurate temperature, wind direction and speed measurements taken at local weather stations on those days, Hagstrum reconstructed the atmospheric conditions. Then, he calculated how infra sound travelled from the loft through the atmosphere, refracting through layers in the air and bouncing off the ground, to find out if Jersey Hill was shaded from the loft’s infra sound homing beacon and how the signal from the loft was channeled by the wind and local terrain to Castor Hill and Weedsport.
Amazingly, on all of the days when the birds vanished from Jersey Hill, Hagstrum could see that the loft’s infrasonic signal was guided away from the ground and high into the atmosphere: the birds could not pick it up. However, on 13 August 1969, the atmospheric conditions were perfect and this time the infrasonic signal was guided directly to the Jersey Hill site. And when he calculated the paths that the loft’s infrasonic signal traveled to Castor Hill and Weedsport they also explained why the birds consistently took the wrong bearing. The terrain and winds had diverted the infra sound so that it approached the release site from the wrong direction, sending the birds off on the wrong bearing.
Explaining that the birds must use the loft’s infrasonic homing beacon to get their bearing before setting the direction for their return flight according to their sun compass, Hagstrum says, ‘I am a bit surprised that after 36 years I finally answered Bill Keeton’s question to the Cornell Geology Department’, adding that he is particularly pleased that he was able to use Keeton’s own data to solve the pigeon mystery.
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Rare pigeon heist in Abbotsford
Police have charged a 29-year-old Abbotsford man with stealing some rare pigeons, and they believe he may be part of a ring responsible for numerous livestock and fowl thefts in the Fraser Valley.
William James Balice was arrested on Canada Day after 365 birds, mostly pigeons, were reported stolen June 28 from a farm in the 2700 block of Lefeuvre Road. He has been charged with possession of stolen property and break and enter.
Abbotsford Police Const. Ian MacDonald said the stolen purebred pigeons are highly sought-after by the bird-show community and sell for $60 to $100 per bird. The breeds taken included the American Roller, the Muffed Tumbler, the West of England Tumbler and Helmet.
Balice was allegedly found in possession of some of the birds, and had listed them for sale on craigslist.
MacDonald said the rarity of the pigeons made them easy to identify, but tracking down the other missing animals has been more difficult.
Abbotsford Police created a position, called LEO (livestock enforcement officer), to deal specifically with the thefts of chickens, pigeons, ducks, goats and sheep.
The incidents began last fall. Two Abbotsford sites were hit in November and February, resulting in the heist of 5,300 pigeons that are sold as meat — known as squab – for $4 to $10 each.
Also this year, close to 20 Boer goats were taken from a property on Downes Road, and hundreds of chickens were stolen from two Abbotsford farms at the end of May.
In Langley, the thefts included 22 lambs, six ducks and 65 chickens from three properties in March. One of those farms was also targeted in December, when 17 ducks were taken.
A farm in Chilliwack was hit in November, when seven pregnant goats were stolen. Six of them were later located on a property in Langley. At the time, Chilliwack RCMP estimated that 60 goats had been swiped from the community.
Balice next appears in Abbotsford provincial court on Friday on the charges related to the pigeon heist. He is also scheduled to plead guilty that day to a previous charge (from March 18) of driving while prohibited.
Balice is also among a group of five charged with break and enter, theft and trespassing in Maple Ridge on March 29, and is next due in Port Coquitlam provincial court on July 13.
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Darwin right proved by pigeon genomes. Humans have shaped the domestic pigeon into hundreds of breeds of various shapes, colours and attributes — a diversity that captivated Charles Darwin, who even conducted breeding experiments on his own pigeons. Now, a number of domestic and feral pigeon genomes have been sequenced for the first time, giving scientists a resource for studying the genetics of how these traits evolved.
The study, published online today in Science1, gives insight into the genetics of both ‘fancy’ domestic breeds and plain street pigeons and supports their common origin from the wild rock dove (Columba livia). “We go from having virtually no genetic or genomic resources available for the pigeon to being able to map regions associated with particular traits,” says team member Michael Shapiro, a biologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
All in the family
The Utah team, along with Jun Wang and colleagues at BGI-Shenzhen in China and scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, sequenced a complete ‘reference’ genome from a breed called the Danish tumbler. The researchers also sequenced the pigeon genomes of 36 different fancy breeds and of two feral birds from different regions of the US.
The study fills in knowledge about the relationships between breeds, many of which are centuries old with origins in the Middle East. Darwin argued that all domestic pigeon breeds descended from the wild rock dove. Shapiro says this study puts data behind that argument, as all the breeds sequenced are more similar genetically to one another than to another, closely related, species of pigeon, C. rupestris. It also found that street pigeons are genetically similar to racing homing pigeons, which frequently escape into the wild.
Ornament and utility
One question is whether similar traits in different breeds, such as flouncy leg feathers or short beaks, are caused by the same genetic mutations. The researchers analysed head crests, feathers growing in the reverse direction to normal that vary from short tufts to outrageous manes that envelop the head. Breeding studies by pigeon fanciers suggested that head crests were caused by a simple recessive mutation. Using software developed for finding genes that underlie human diseases, the researchers analysed crested and uncrested breeds, and discovered a mutation in a gene that matched the crests in all cases. The results suggest that the mutation evolved just once in the species.
Head crests, Shapiro said, are “one of many traits that we see in domestic pigeons that have a correlate in lots of natural species of birds,” where they are used in courtship and displays of aggression. Further research will be able to discover whether the same gene is involved in creating crests in other species. In similar fashion, Shapiro says, scientists can use pigeon genetics to study the emergence of more complex traits.
Leif Andersson, who studies domestic animal genetics at Uppsala University in Sweden, says that the work addresses a gap in our knowledge about pigeons, which has lagged behind that of chickens, pigs and dogs. Domesticated species are important tools for comparative genomics, with traits honed by humans over thousands of years. “The different domestic animals complement each other,” he says, “because they’ve been selected for different purposes.”
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pigeon racing cruel?
It’s a bit like an Olympic training camp. Only the athletes are pigeons.
Bad experiences in Trafalgar Square had led me to foresee a flutter of mangy birds in a loft strewn with droppings.
These birds are glowing with health and their sawdust floor is cleaner than my local pub.
The white ones are almost loveable.
The birds are all being raised by a professional pigeon fancier and trained on behalf of their owners for the thrill of the race.
But this seemingly innocuous sport is heading for a shock; it has been condemned by the radical animal rights group Peta as fundamentally cruel.
I found this accusation hard to credit at first, until a casual chat with a colleague.
Ethical dilemma?
She told me this extraordinary story. She used to live next door to a pigeon fancier. One day his winged competitors returned from a race, but one refused to re-enter the loft; it perched on the house roof, out of reach of its owner who wanted to register its ID from the tag on its skinny leg.
A simple solution was at hand, in the shape of an air rifle. He shot the bird and collected its corpse to complete his race record.
“You made that up,” I accused. “No I didn’t,” she replied.
So, back to Peta: This report does not investigate the many claims it has made about how pigeon racing is cruel
Instead, it raises some of the intriguing ethical issues, which fall broadly into three categories.
The first is the shoot-bird-on-roof variety. Peta’s video appears to show secretly filmed video of owners performing a ruthless genetic winnowing, selecting slow-flying birds and snapping their necks before tossing them into the bin.
The official voices of pigeon racing make no attempt to defend any instances of prima facie being cruel. Stewart Wardrop, manager of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association (RPRA), told me any proven maltreatment should be punished.
“There are 43,000 registered pigeon fanciers. In 43,000 individuals, there will be people who do silly and stupid things but the vast majority of pigeon fanciers look after and take care of their animals – why wouldn’t they?”
Charge number two is that pigeon racing is inherently cruel because it involves inevitable deaths – especially during races across the English Channel.
The protestors say in some Channel races, 90% of birds have gone missing, with many presumed dead. Stewart Wardrop’s figures are more conservative: a bad race would not normally lose more than 75%, he says. Sometimes only a few percent might go astray.
“My personal view is ‘no’, I don’t believe it is cruel,” he says.
But cruelty to animals is a slippery notion. We breed pigs and kill them all; but we eat them and to many people that confers moral acceptability. Should there be different ethical criteria for animals in sport?
We have banned cock-fighting, bear-baiting and fox hunting with dogs. We still lose a few horses in the Grand National. It’s rare but it provokes an outcry when it happens.
However, there are thousands of birds in a big race, so losing 75% of them in some events is noteworthy, even if many people consider pigeons to be no better than flying rats.
And while we’re on the subject of rats, let’s get hypothetical for a moment.
Suppose you were breeding rats to race them. What’s an acceptable rate of collateral damage? 5%? 10%? That’s one for debate.
High fidelity
The next category of accusation has already caused marital conflict among some of my anthropomorphically inclined friends.
It concerns the relative fidelity of male and female pigeons, and a process known as “widowing.”
Now, the pigeon is a monogamous creature. In the early days in a loft, male and female individuals all claim their own box as territory. As romance blossoms, the birds form pairs and they move in together to share the same box, kissing each other in what is, even for a hard-bitten hack like myself, a heart-warming sight.
In an avian version of the ideal egalitarian marriage, both male and female sit on the nest and both feed the hatchlings with milk produced in their crop, a projection from the throat. And they stick together in their pigeon pair.
The pigeon’s fidelity can be exploited in a process known as widowing, or widowhood, in which the pairs are split up and one bird is taken away to race back to the loft.
As Stewart Wardrop explains it, in a sprint race the stronger male birds will surge back to their hen and particularly their territory. But if the male birds are taken farther afield, they’re often tempted by pastures new.
Now consider the attitude of the female birds: separate them from their cocks and they will fly determinedly back to their love over hill and high water. So it’s typically the females that are entered into the prestigious race back to the UK from Barcelona.
After struggling to cross the Pyrenees, many of them appear to have their fidelity rewarded with an exhausted watery end in the Channel.
“The Barcelona race – the long distance races – are the pinnacle of the pigeon racing sport,” the RPRA man tells me. “Those pigeons are very experienced pigeons.”
The Barcelona fliers are not exactly volunteers: “No. They’re not volunteers but they do enjoy pampered lives, though. The pigeon fancier carefully weighs up, and he will only send out, pigeons that he thinks have a genuine chance of coming back and performing for him. I wouldn’t mind being a pigeon.”
Stewart Wardrop says the whereabouts of the pigeons that don’t return is a mystery – perhaps many of them find new homes elsewhere. The association is hoping to learn more about this by fitting pigeons with tracking devices in a trial with two universities.
Jeremy Davies, who runs the Worcestershire training loft, agrees with him that widowing is acceptable.
“They are happy to race, you know,” he tells me. “You get a sense of feeling for the pigeon. If a pigeon is unhappy, it will sit there all glum. If it wasn’t happy, it would stay in Barcelona in the sun and wouldn’t come home!”
Both men consider the Peta allegations oddly misguided.
Ingrid Newkirk, founder of Peta, believe it’s the sport that is misguided: “Pigeons are bright, clever and we happened upon the fact that pigeon racing can be horribly cruel.
“The females have had their instincts manipulated to get back to their mate and their brood. Flying the Channel is a frightening prospect for them – and many of them will perish.
“The pigeon racers we filmed refer to the Channel as a death trap – the ‘Bird-muda Triangle’. In World War II, they had to fly the Channel but they don’t have to die doing so now for a little bet.
“It’s like saying I’ll wager you to see if your toddler gets to the other side of the road.”
So who will decide whether pigeon racing goes the same way as bear-baiting and cock-fighting? I contacted the RSPCA but they said it wasn’t really their territory.
It’s hard to know whether sufficient numbers of people care enough about pigeons for the protestors to make headway. The average age of a British pigeon-fancier is in the 60s. Perhaps the protesters should just bide their time.
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Pigeon Message That Saved A World War II Bomber Crew
On 23 February 1942, a badly damaged RAF bomber ditched into the North Sea.
The crew were returning from a mission over Norway, but their Beaufort Bomber had been hit by enemy fire and crashed into the sea more than 100 miles from home.
Struggling in freezing waters – unable to radio an accurate position back to base – the four men faced a cold and lonely death.
But as the aircraft went down, the crew had managed to salvage their secret weapon – a carrier pigeon. The blue chequered hen bird, called Winkie, was set free in the hope it could fly home to its loft in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, and so alert air base colleagues to their predicament.
During World War II, carrier pigeons were routinely carried by RAF bombers for this very eventuality, though in an era before GPS and satellite locator beacons, rescue was far from certain.
The pigeon was not carrying a message, but the RAF were able to calculate the position of the downed aircraft using the time difference between the plane’s ditching and the arrival of the bird – taking into account the wind direction and even the impact of the oil on Winkie’s feathers to her flight speed.
A rescue mission was launched and the men were found within 15 minutes.
Elaine Pendlebury, from the PDSA, said the carrier pigeon had been released as a “last ditch stand” when the crew realised they had no other options.
“I find it very, very moving really. These people would have died without this pigeon message coming through,” said Ms Pendlebury.
Winkie became the toast of the air base, with a dinner held in her honour. A year later, she became the first animal to receive the Dickin Medal – named after PDSA’s founder Maria Dickin – for “delivering a message under exceptional difficulties”.
More than 60 animals have since received the award, including 18 dogs, three horses and one cat. But pigeons still rule the medal roost, with 32 being given medals, all between 1943 and 1949.
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