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szdaily -> Kaleidoscope -> 
Joe the Pigeon escapes death in Australia
    2021-01-18  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

A PIGEON that Australia declared a biosecurity risk has received a reprieve after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake.

The band suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left Oregon, 8,000 miles (12,874 kilometers) away, two months earlier.

On that basis, Australian authorities said Thursday they considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it.

But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said Friday the band was fake.

The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the U.S. and that is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said.

“The bird band in Australia is counterfeit and not traceable,” Roberts said. “It definitely has a home in Australia and not the U.S.”

Australia’s Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, agreed that the pigeon dubbed Joe, after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, was wearing a “fraudulent copy” leg band.

“Following an investigation, the department has concluded that Joe the Pigeon is highly likely to be Australian and does not present a biosecurity risk,” it said in a statement.

Acting Australian Prime Minister Michael McCormack had earlier said there would be no mercy if the pigeon was from the United States.

“If Joe has come in a way that has not met our strict biosecurity measures, then bad luck Joe, either fly home or face the consequences,” McCormack said.

Martin Foley, health minister for Victoria state, where Joe is living, had called for the federal government to spare the bird even if it posed a disease risk.

“I would urge the Commonwealth’s quarantine officials to show a little bit of compassion,” Foley said.

Andy Meddick, a Victorian lawmaker for the minor Animal Justice Party, called for a “pigeon pardon for Joe.”

“Should the federal government allow Joe to live, I am happy to seek assurances that he is not a flight risk,” Meddick said.

Melbourne resident Kevin Celli-Bird, who found the emaciated bird in his backyard, was surprised by the change of nationality but pleased that the bird he named Joe would not be destroyed.

The bird with the genuine leg band had disappeared from a 350-mile race in Oregon on Oct. 29, Crooked River Challenge owner Lucas Cramer said.

That bird did not have a racing record that would make it valuable enough to steal its identity, he said.

Australian quarantine authorities are notoriously strict. In 2015, the government threatened to euthanize two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, after they were smuggled into the country by Hollywood star Johnny Depp and his now-ex-wife Amber Heard.

Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.

(SD-Agencies)

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