Everyone’s talking about... Pigeon racing
BREXIT is being blamed for everything – even a crisis in pigeon-racing. Is that true?
Well, there’s more red tape on cross-Channel races, but the sport, once one of Britain’s most popular, has been waning for decades. Working men’s clubs, where fanciers traditionally meet, are closing and the young have little interest. The growing population of peregrine falcons, pigeons’ predators, is also a factor. But it’s booming elsewhere. In Indonesia, husbands taking up racing have made divorce rates soar; a Chinese buyer paid £1.4 million for a pigeon in 2020; and a South African race offers £1.1million in prizes.
How did it start?
Messenger pigeons have been used for 3,000 years, and about 200,000 birds served Britain in the Second World War. Because of a radio silence, the first report of D-Day came via a pigeon called Gustav, earning him a medal. His death, however, was less noble: someone trod on him. Flying at up to 60mph, pigeons are faster than faxes over a mile. Indian police forces in remote regions used them until 2002, when they got the internet.
And racing as a sport?
It began in the 19th Century and peaked in Edwardian times, especially among miners and railwaymen. Until 1973, trains had pigeon wagons to take birds to races. But pigeons are not just ‘poor man’s racehorses’: the Queen has 200 and recently spent £40,000 on a new loft at Sandringham. Usually birds race from a starting point back to their own bases, but cheating’s not unknown: in 2016 a bird that ‘won’ a race never left its Oxfordshire loft. The same year, six Belgian birds failed dope tests. And last June up to 10,000 birds went missing during a UK race. No one knows why.
How do they navigate?
Using the Earth’s magnetic field and landmarks, even motorways. Pigeons are remarkably smart, and have learned the difference between Monet and Picasso paintings. ‘Bird-brained’ should be a compliment!