Australia plans to kill pigeon that made 8,000-mile Pacific Ocean crossing from the US

The racing pigeon sits on a rooftop in Melbourne, Australia (Channel 9/AP)

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.