A racing pigeon has survived an extraordinary 13,000-kilometre Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to find a new home in Australia. Now authorities consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it.
But authorities now consider the bird a quarantine risk and plan to kill it.
Melbourne resident Kevin Celli-Bird said on Thursday he discovered the exhausted bird in his back yard on December 26. It had disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on October 29.
Experts suspect the pigeon that Celli-Bird has named Joe, after the US president-elect, 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.
Celli-Bird said quarantine authorities called him on Thursday to ask him to catch the bird.
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