Cowboy hat pigeon dies, Las Vegas rescuers say: ‘She was weak when we caught her’

Animal rescuers captured two pigeons last month after viral videos showed birds walking around Las Vegas in cowboy hats — but those rescue efforts weren’t enough to save one of the birds.

Lofty Hopes, the Nevada bird group that caught the bird and named her Billie the Pidge, said in a Facebook post Sunday that the animal died of an undetected illness.

“The hat could have interfered with her being able to dislodge small insects from under it, and pigeons are very active preeners (groomers), not just for themselves, but for the others in their flocks,” the animal rescue group said. “The fumes of the glue [could] have slowly poisoned her. Pigeons have a very fragile respiratory system. So many things could have gone wrong.”

Lofty Hopes wrote in a Facebook comment that “one more [pigeon] has been caught and the hat removed. We are still trying to capture another.” It’s still not clear how or why the hats ended up glued to the birds’ heads.

Billie the Pidge was captured Dec. 17 while rescuers were trying to capture another pigeon — Coolamity Jane — that had a cowboy hat affixed to its head, KSNV reported. Lofty Hopes captured a pigeon dubbed Cluck Norris earlier in the month.

“From the time we spotted and captured her she didn’t have the same wild fight in her,” rescuers said of Billie the Pidge. “She was a pretty easy capture. She had [stringfoot.] ... Surely this was an issue when she was trapped and had a hat cruelly glued to her head, but her captor, instead of helping her, released her not caring that she would lose more of her toes.”

Stringfoot happens when string, wire or other human-generated litter gets wrapped around a bird’s feet or toes — sometimes costing the animals one or more appendages, according to Palomacy, a pigeon advocacy group.

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Rescuers said the efforts to catch the third cowboy pigeon continue.

“We are truly saddened by her loss and will always remember her struggle,” the group said of Billie the Pidge.

The birds’ cowboy hats were mysteriously attached to their heads with glue, which Lofty Hopes rescuer Mariah Hillman said she learned when Cluck Norris was finally captured, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last month.

Hillman said the pigeons seemed to be scratching their heads to remove the hats, per the Review-Journal. She also said the glued hat removed feathers from Cluck Norris’ head.

Video of the behatted birds was posted weeks ago on Facebook, generating national media attention.

“Just another day in the neighborhood,” Bobby Lee wrote in a post sharing the short clip.

But while the Wild West accessories might look funny, representatives of Lofty Hopes weren’t laughing.

“We are headed to the location to see if we can find these birds, trap them, and get these hats off,” Lofty Hopes rescuers wrote in a Facebook post sharing the clip of the pigeons.

A clip also went wild on Twitter, where it was shared by Las Vegas Locally and viewed millions of times.

“There are consequences to legalizing marijuana,” the tweet said.

Lee captured the video near Tropicana Avenue and Maryland Parkway, KTNV reported. Lee said the video was taken after he happened to spot one of the animals out of the corner of his eye, according to Storyful.

“I saw something red on the pigeon’s head and looked down to these awesome things,” Lee told Storyful. “The rodeo is in town so that’s the only explanation I have.”

Even Hillman at first reacted positively to the hats.

“At first, I was like, oh my god that’s cute!” Hillman told KVVU. “Then, I was like, wait a minute — how did they get those hats on there?”

Some material in this story appeared in an earlier article by the author