Australia plans to kill pigeon that made 8,000-mile Pacific Ocean crossing from the US
A racing pigeon which survived an extraordinary 8,000-mile Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to Australia is a quarantine risk and could be killed, Australian authorities say.
Kevin Celli-Bird said on Thursday he discovered that the exhausted bird which arrived in his garden in Melbourne on December 26 had disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on October 29.
Experts suspect the pigeon, which Mr Celli-Bird has named Joe, after the US president-elect, hitched a ride on a cargo ship to cross the Pacific.
Joeâs feat has attracted the attention of the Australian media but also of the notoriously strict Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
Mr Celli-Bird said quarantine authorities called him on Thursday to ask him to catch the bird.
âThey say if it is from America, then theyâre concerned about bird diseases,â he said.
âThey wanted to know if I could help them out. I said, âTo be honest, I canât catch it. I can get within 500 millimetres of it and then it movesâ.â
He said quarantine authorities were now considering contracting a professional bird catcher.
The agriculture department, which is responsible for biosecurity, said the pigeon was ânot permitted to remain in Australiaâ because it âcould compromise Australiaâs food security and our wild bird populationsâ.
âIt poses a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry,â a department statement said.
In 2015, the government threatened to euthanise two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, after they were smuggled into the country by Hollywood star Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.
It poses a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry
Australian agriculture department
Pigeons are an unusual sight in Mr Celli-Birdâs backyard in suburban Officer, where Australian native doves are far more common.
âIt rocked up at our place on Boxing Day. Iâve got a fountain in the backyard and it was having a drink and a wash. He was pretty emaciated so I crushed up a dry biscuit and left it out there for him,â Mr Celli-Bird said.
âNext day, he rocked back up at our water feature, so I wandered out to have a look at him because he was fairly weak and he didnât seem that afraid of me and I saw he had a blue band on his leg.
âObviously he belongs to someone, so I managed to catch him,â he added.
Mr Celli-Bird, who says he has no interest in birds âapart from my last nameâ, said he could no longer catch the pigeon with his bare hands since it had regained its strength.
He said the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama.
I think that he just decided that since Iâve given him some food and heâs got a spot to drink, thatâs home
Kevin Celli-Bird
Mr Celli-Bird said he had attempted to contact the owner, but had so far been unable to get through.
The bird spends every day in the garden, sometimes sitting next to a native dove on a pergola. Mr Celli-Bird has been feeding it pigeon food.
âI think that he just decided that since Iâve given him some food and heâs got a spot to drink, thatâs home,â he said.
Australian National Pigeon Association secretary Brad Turner said he had heard of cases of Chinese racing pigeons reaching the Australian west coast aboard cargo ships, a far shorter voyage.
Mr Turner said there were genuine fears pigeons from the United States could carry exotic diseases and he agreed Joe should be destroyed.
âWhile it sounds harsh to the normal person â theyâd hear that and go âThis is cruelâ, and everything else â Iâd think youâd find that AQIS and those sort of people would give their wholehearted support for the idea,â Mr Turner said, referring to the quarantine service.
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