A pigeon trainer is fuming after racers he was preparing for an event in Italy were shot out of the sky near Rabat yesterday.

Mario Bonello said his routine training session for his beloved birds turned into tragedy as he watched them drop dead one by one shortly after 2.30 p.m. He lost 10 pigeons in all – he saw seven downed by gunshot and three failed to return. Three other birds returned severely wounded.

The parents of one of the dead birds cost him €2,000 to buy.

Mr Bonello can be reached on mariokurtney@hotmail.com.

More details on the Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium.

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