An Open Letter to the Person Blowing Darts at Birds in Missoula

I don't really do "open letters" like all these ones I see people posting on the internet. But I felt like this was a prime situation to pen my first one. I was scrolling through my Nextdoor app recently when I saw where somebody in Missoula had posted a picture of a bird with an arrow stuck in its neck. Perhaps the bird ran itself into an arrow that was laying in a dangerous position? Possible. And I suppose the bird could have been showing off to his bird friends about how cool he is because he shoots human darts.....and then things took a turn for the worst. But for the sake of things, we're going to assume somebody decided to shoot the dart at the bird for some unknown reason.

So my letter would go something like this:

Dear person shooting darts into the necks of birds,

What the 'F' is your problem?

Signed,
Yours truly.

See, I told you open letters on the internet might not be my thing. But what a sad thing to see - for no reason.

Here's the post that accompanied the picture:

Why do people have to be so horrible?
This poor bird is just being a bird and some vile person shot it with a blow dart - now we get to watch this poor thing die. Anyone have any advice on trying to ease its passing?

What's the best thing to do in a situation like this?

Of course, the bird wouldn't allow anybody near it. So a bunch of people offered up their thoughts on how to help - as well as their thoughts on the situation as a whole.

- I know it sounds horrible but personally I'd recommend a knife or blunt object to its head so it doesn't have to suffer......

- ....see if you can get a laundry basket over it, and call animal control to see if they do humane calls.

- I would also report it so that police are aware someone is using blow darts on animals.

- Are we really going to do the blow dart thing again??? People are so horrible.

- If you could catch it and hold it, you could cut the dart and remove it. It may well heal just fine. The dart isn't going through the big part of the body and may have penetrated mostly feathers.

- Five Valley Audubon Society will take injured birds.

- You could prop up a box or laundry basket with a string attached, sprinkle seed underneath, and when it's under pull the string.......

But the story has a happy ending!

The original poster was thankful for all the suggestions and even provided the following news:

***UPDATE*** pigeon is now dart free. I don't know if someone was able to catch and help him or if the dart came out on its own but he's eating and flying normally. His neck is a little puffy.