80-year-old facing $23K bill after racing pigeons were seized while he was in hospital
CBC
Arthur Plasschaert has been racing pigeons as a hobby since he was a 13-year-old in the Netherlands.
A retired real estate agent, he's spent the last five decades raising and racing the birds about 140 kilometres east of Toronto, in Brighton, Ont. Now, he says his pigeons have been taken away and he's been left with nothing.
"I miss my birds," Plasschaert said.
"I have no wife. I have no children. That's all I had, my birds."
Until this past winter, Plasschaert housed around 600 racing pigeons in lofts he built himself on a property he owns in Brighton. But the day before Christmas 2021, he was hospitalized with COVID-19. Over the next two months, he would be moved to the intensive care unit at Belleville General Hospital twice.
When he was finally discharged last February, the Humane Society had confiscated his pigeons and he was left with a bill of $5,867 from the province. Since then, that bill has increased to nearly $23,000.
Plasschaert relies on his Canada Pension for his income and said he does not have the money to pay the bill.
When he was hospitalized, Plasschaert did not have a plan in place to take care of his pigeons.
"I had no backup. I never thought I was going to be ending up like this," he said.
From the hospital, he called a couple of friends who work for the Township of Brighton. They said they'd look after the birds for him but the township soon called them in to clear roads after a big snowstorm. That meant they were unable to feed the birds for several days, he said.
In the meantime, a concerned neighbour who hadn't seen Plasschaert in a few days called the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate his absence. When the OPP arrived at Plasschaert's property, they found 337 of the pigeons dead. The Humane Society was called in to remove the birds that survived, Plasschaert said.
Still in hospital, Plasschaert said he received a phone call from the Humane Society telling him he would need to provide a new place to house the birds within 10 days. He would also be required to pay to house and feed the birds for that period.
The representative told him the birds would become property of the Crown after 10 days, Plasschaert said.
During this time he could barely stand up, he said. He would often be short of breath just trying to walk from his bed to a chair in his hospital room, and that was before being moved into intensive care.