The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Feathers fly over fugitive Joe
Aracing 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 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.
Mr Celli-bird said quarantine authorities called him 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 millimetres of it and then it moves’.”
He said quarantine authorities were now considering contracting a professional bird catcher.
The agriculture department, which is responsible for biosecurity, said the pigeon was “not permitted to remain in Australia”.
“It poses a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry,” 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 exwife Amber Heard.
Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.
Mr Celli-bird said the bird landed on a fountain in his garden on Boxing Day.
“He was pretty emaciated so I crushed up a dry biscuit and left it out there for him,” Mr Celli-bird said.
“Next 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 didn’t seem that afraid of me.”
Mr Celli-bird said he could no longer catch the pigeon with his bare hands since it had regained its strength.
He said the Oklahomabased American Racing Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama.