It is still a big mystery. Even five days after the first video on the case surfaced, Las Vegas is wondering who is behind it. Who is responsible for ensuring that at least two pigeons in the city carry small cowboy hats on their heads.
Last Thursday, Robert Lee posted a video of the animals on his Facebook account, he took it out of his car. The 13-second clip features pigeons pecking for food near the bottom of a trash can. So far, so common. But one of the pigeons wears a red cowboy hat in miniature format, another a gray one.
From there it was pretty fast, as the 26-year-old Lee said to the "New York Times" ("NYT"). On Friday many people had contacted him, who wanted to buy the video. The website "Storyful" therefore verified the clip and spread it, local media moved quickly. Meanwhile, the video has been clicked on the various platforms more than two million times.
The attention is there. But the question of who or who is responsible is still not answered.
Robert Lee claims that the action may be related to a rodeo event that took place in Las Vegas, a promotion, so to speak. But the organizers "had nothing to do with the pigeons wearing cowboy hats," quoted "NYT" Scott Kaniewski of "ProRodeo Sports News."
On Monday, another video appeared on social media showing a dove in Las Vegas wearing a red cowboy hat:
Here's the cowboy has pigeon content you've been craving, via @kassandraqueenn pic.twitter.com/dX3HEo119D
- Las Vegas Locally (@LasVegasLocally) December 9, 2019It is still unclear how exactly the hats were attached to the heads of the birds, for example, whether they were stuck. "At first I thought, 'Oh my god, that's cute!'", Said Mariah Hillmann to the broadcaster KVVU. She co-founded the Lofty Hopes organization in Las Vegas, which works to protect pigeons. "But then I thought, 'Hold on, how did you attach these hats?'"
Among other things, Hillmann worries that the hats may limit the flying ability of the animals or attract attackers. The organization is now trying to find the pigeons to remove the hats. It relies on the help of the population.
The "NYT" also spoke to the ornithologist Charles Walcott, who has been working with pigeons for 30 years. He is not too worried about the animals in the video. He could not see that the pigeons would be harmed. The hats are light enough. "For me they look like happy pigeons," the newspaper quotes the experts. "Of course it's hard to know, because they do not talk to us."