Public Relations Stunt Ruffles Feathers

A Scottish insurance company shipped out 77 live homing pigeons in a public relations stunt. But it generated the wrong kind of publicity.

“It’s absolutely disgusting in all aspects,” said Jo Crozier, a spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The campaign by Scottish Life International, of Edinburgh, sought to promote investment opportunities by delivering boxed homing pigeons to news organizations, offering a case of Scotch whisky to the one whose pigeon got back first.

The company’s public relations firm said all the birds returned safely. The animal rights group said it was having four of them examined by a veterinarian.