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Pigeon Declared Australia Biosecurity RiskGets Reprieve from Fake U.S. Leg Band
Posted
January 20, 2021
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5:23Now PlayingA pigeon that Australia declared a biosecurity risk may get 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 December 26 was a racing pigeon that had left the U.S. state of Oregon, 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, two months earlier.
On that basis, Australian authorities on Thursday said they considered the bird - named Joe after the US president-elect - to be a disease risk and planned to kill it.
But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said the band was fake.
The band number belongs to a blue bar pigeon in the United States and that is not the bird pictured in Australia, she said.
Acting Australian Prime Minister Michael McCormack said he did not know what the fate would be of Joe the pigeon.
But he indicated there would be no mercy if the pigeon were from the United States.
"Good luck, Joe," McCormack said. "But 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."
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 ex-wife Amber Heard.
Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.
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