Jan 15, 2021
In this Wednesday image made from video, a pigeon with a blue leg band stands on a rooftop in Melbourne, Australia. A U.S. bird organization said the leg band identifying the bird as a U.S. racing pigeon was counterfeit, which may save the bird from strict Australian biosecurity policies that would call for a U.S. pigeon to be killed. (Channel 9 via AP, File)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) 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 on Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left the U.S. state of Oregon, 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, two months earlier.
The pigeon found in Australia with a U.S. leg band and credited with somehow crossing the Pacific will not be put to death after experts declared the blue ID ring around its leg a fake.
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The Australian government has decided against euthanizing the “racing pigeon” which they initially deemed a biosecurity risk because they thought it had flown from the United States to Australia, according to the Associated Press.
The pigeon had reportedly landed in the backyard of a Melbourne, Australia resident after journeying 8,000 miles from Oregon to Australia, but Australian and American authorities determined on Friday that the identifying tag on the racing pigeon was fake, and that the pigeon is not a racing pigeon belonging to an owner in the United States, but a domestic Australian pigeon, according to the Associated Press.