Australian authorities could kill pigeon which crossed Pacific

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.

Melbourne resident Kevin CelliBird found the exhausted pigeon in his garden on December 26, and later discovered it 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 Joe Biden, 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. Mr Celli-Bird said quarantine authorities called him yesterday to ask him to catch the bird.

“They say, if it is from America, then they’re concerned about bird diseases,” he said.

The country’s agriculture department, which is responsible for biosecurity, said that the pigeon was “not permitted to remain in Australia” because it “could compromise Australia’s food security and our wild bird populations”.

Mr Celli-Bird said the Oklahomabased American Racing Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama. He has tried in vain to contact the owner.