Australia to kill pigeon that crossed Pacific from Oregon

[douglas9]

CANBERRA – A racing pigeon has survived an extraordinary 13,000-kilometer (8,000-mile) Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to find a new home in Australia. Now authorities consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it.

Kevin Celli-Bird said Thursday he discovered the exhausted bird that arrived in his Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 had disappeared from a race in the U.S. state of Oregon on Oct. 29.

Experts suspect the pigeon that Celli-Bird has named Joe, after the U.S. president-elect, hitched a ride on a cargo ship to cross the Pacific.

Joe’s feat has attracted the attention of the Australian media but also of the notoriously strict Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.

Celli-Bird said quarantine authorities called him on Thursday to ask him to catch the bird.

“They say if it is from America, then they’re concerned about bird diseases,” he said. “They wanted to know if I could help them out. I said, ’To be honest, I can’t catch it. I can get within 500 mil (millimeters or 20 inches) of it and then it moves.’”

https://www.ksat.com/news/world/2021/01/14/australia-to-kill-pigeon-that-crossed-pacific-from-oregon/

[MyOwnPeace]

1. Let's make a deal with them.....

Tell 'em we'll take it back if they take Trump......

[sinkingfeeling]

2. +100 But why don't they just catch it and put it in quarantine or ship it back?

[douglas9]

3. That was my thought n/t

[cab67]

4. There may be legal issues.

Tight restrictions were put on shipping birds internationally because of bird flu.

The pigeon definitely should not be there, and Australians are very strict about preserving what's left of their native fauna. I would rather see it sent back as well, but from a purely legal standpoint, that might not be an option.

[douglas9]

5. Update 1.15.2021

snip>

But on Friday, information suddenly emerged that may give the bird a reprieve: Joe may not be an American pigeon after all.

A local pigeon rescue group said on Facebook that it had seen plenty of local birds wearing the same type of band found on Joe’s leg. “We believe he is not an American pigeon at all — rather an Australian pigeon wearing a knockoff American ring that anyone could buy off eBay,” the organization said.

A spokeswoman for the American Racing Pigeon Union also said that Joe’s band was probably a counterfeit and that he was in all likelihood an Australian pigeon, according to The Associated Press.

The Department of Agriculture said it was “investigating the authenticity of the U.S. identification tag.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/world/australia/joe-pigeon.html

[hrtsafyre]

6. What happened to the pigeon?

Does anyone know how this turned out? Was the band a knock off or What? Racing pigeons don't get lost. They know which direction home is. He must have gotten forced out to sea in a storm, then hitched a ride back to shore on the ship. Does anyone know the outcomes?

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Update: Fake US leg band gets pigeon a reprieve in Australia

CANBERRA – A pigeon that Australia declared a biosecurity risk has received a reprieve after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake.

The band suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left the U.S. state of Oregon, 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, two months earlier.

On that basis, Australian authorities on Thursday said they considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it.

But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said on Friday the band was fake.

The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the United States which is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said.

“The bird band in Australia is counterfeit and not traceable,” Roberts said. “They do not need to kill him.”

Australia's Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, agreed that the pigeon dubbed Joe, after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, was wearing a “fraudulent copy” leg band.


https://www.ksat.com/news/world/2021/01/14/australia-to-kill-pigeon-that-crossed-pacific-from-oregon/

[In_The_Wind]

8. Thank you! Great news.