Kevin Celli-Bird said pm Thursday he discovered the exhausted bird that arrived in his Melbourne backyard on December 26 had disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on October 29.
“They say if it is from America, then they’re concerned about bird diseases,” he said. “They wanted to know if I could help them out. I said, ’To be honest, I can’t catch it. I can get within 500 mil of it and then it moves.’”The Agriculture Department, which is responsible for biosecurity, said the pigeon was “not permitted to remain in Australia” because it "could compromise Australia's food security and our wild bird populations.
“It rocked up at our place on Boxing Day. I’ve got a fountain in the backyard and it was having a drink and a wash. He was pretty emaciated so I crushed up a dry biscuit and left it out there for him,” Celli-Bird said. He said the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama.The bird spends every day in the backyard, sometimes sitting side-by-side with a native dove on a pergola. Celli-Bird has been feeding it pigeon food from within days of its arrival.
Turner said there were genuine fears pigeons from the United States could carry exotic diseases and he agreed Joe should be destroyed.
So I guess every other migratory bird has to be put down?
An unwanted asylum seeker Mr Dutton? Send the pigeon to Manus island?
The pigeon smarter than our Authorities
Quarantine, it deserves to live flying all that way SaveThePigeon
Surely there is an alternative for this champion.
The Nanny State at its very best
McCormack commented trying comedy which went down like a lead balloon
Our Australian scientists should be scientifically analysing that super yankee pigeon to learn whatever physical or genetic secrets made its long trip to Australia possible. Keep the Border Force goons away from it.
Sad, please do not kill this innocent creature
Does that mean we should kill all our migratory bird? The logic escapes me.
just how many millions of birds migrate here every year that are not treated that way?
We have lost our minds to an idea called CONTROL. We control NOTHING -feral cats are the problem, the bread we feed pigeons is the problem not this high flyer.
david_lunt If it was a true homing pidgeon then it should returned back to the US.
This story is giving me Pistol and Boo flashbacks 😳
Its a bird, this is what they do, they fly and not worry about borders... Our governments are trying to control everything. FFS let it go.
WTH even refugee birds aren't safe in Australia.
Are they going to kill ALL migrating birds? These people are lunatics
Don't kill it. That would be horrible.
shootin4love Can we go after the Indian Myna too then ?If a single pigeon has to be euthanised, surely we go nuts on these other vermin.
So now we are determining what nature can and can’t do within this natural world?!!!
What’s wrong with 14 days in hotel quarantine?
Didn't anyone tell it about Pistol and Boo?
I’m sure it had 14 days isolation.
Don’t kill it, return it to it’s owner
Just put it under quarantine properly and desex it.
Why not just put it on Christmas Island?
Don’t kill him, it could start a pigeon coup
But we let in
Millions of birds migrate here every year This has reached PEAK STUPIDITY! PEAK !!!!!
Quarantine the bird Don’t kill it Gods creature
In 5 days we will officially have the dumbest government on the planet.
OMG. What a welcoming nation we are?! Shutting borders on each other and now killing a bird that has crossed the Pacific.
Can't biosecurity at least check and quarantine it first? It isn't your average pigeon
Yet millions of birds travel to or through Australia every year as part of their migratory travels. We don’t euthanise them.
Thousands of animals are slaughtered every day or kept in unnatural environments for food production. Yet people lose it over a pigeon being humanly euthanised for a valid bio security reason.
Maybe the pidgeon is delivering a message to a Trump supporter?
He did not have the correct entry visa according to Dutton so we have only once choice ...
Disease risk? Better shoot down those Qantas planes then.
Send it to Manus and forget, the Australian solution.
Imforthewhales This is inhuman. Why kill the poor bird?
Well should we consider all migratory animals a threat? Here is a list of shorebirds that migrate from China, Korea, and other South East Asian countries. Source: satire
Can’t spot a virus-laden cruise ship parked on their front doorstep, but now they want to kill a brave, resourceful pigeon. Typical of Border Farce.
Please spare this poor brave bird. Please it's very cruel to kill it.
Lets hope not. Mind you, our leader attends hillsong.
We don't fuck around when it comes to illegal immigration.
Don’t kill it! So ridiculous that millions kualas, kangaroos, and also special Australian animals and nature have died in bushfire last year !! So how just a pigeon can hurt the australia environment !!
No!!!!! Return it to the US.
please spare this bird
Come on man !
Birds fly into Australia from overseas all the time, so why pick on this particular bird. Boo Hiss, leave the poor thing alone.
can’t we quarantine it for 14 days , that’s very cruel killing it! SaveThePigeon ScottMorrisonMP albo GregHuntMP Australia pigeon USA or return it to US
Good
reinventionfail Ha ha our authorities are unhinged, off there ducking tits, let’s exterminate them, “quid quo pro” for each loss on our soil they swear to protect.
Dangerman_2 ha. thought this was satire from BetootaAdvocate at first. Why not just deport it? One of the Federal Govt's few areas of expertise as I understand it.
No!!!
Make me an angel That flies from Montgomery.... JohnPrineMusic
He was just trying to flee Trump drama. We should be breeding the bird!
This is so cruel
Close the borders
Wtf don’t kill the poor bird 😣
A nation that makes others LMAO with silly quarantine fascism. They cull thousands of roos, camels, koalas, etc every year to protect so called god knows what!
You should run drug tests on these idiots those making these decisions
Just let it fly to Queensland and Western Australia and let it bite the premiers on the bum!
Does our answer always have to be to kill? Time to respect nature. This is an incredible story of stamina.
Why not just deport the poor pigeon?
Why should a smart bird fleeing a doomed country be murdered?
Seriously that's REDICULOUS. Give him a chance. What about all the birds that migrate and have migrated for thousands of years? What a cruel stupid response. This is a brave little bird
Animal cruelty at it's finest. It has rights.
Just bang it up in Hotel Quarantine for two weeks until it has had 7 negative tests then charge it 3 grand with nasty threats from the SDRO of what will happen if it doesnt pay and let the poor fucker go.
Disgraceful by Aust quarantine. The guy should just release the bird.
So!
NOOOO. Is nothing safe
Give him a lift home, Pistol and Boo made it.
bencubby Poor thing. Perhaps it had inside info prior to recent events in the Capitol that’s why it escaped. It just didn’t know how we treat those seeking asylum.
We need to put this bird on Manus or Nauru prisons to deter an influx of dangerous pigeons invading our shores. Maybe it’s an economic refupigeon?
It is stupid to kill that bird that had the stamina to fly 13,000 kilometers. It will not test positive for COVID-19.
Bad sign for the international Australian Open players.
How hard would it be to just keep it in a fucking cage!?
EvieDaisy3 We don’t deserve animals 😔
FFS I hope the same rules apply if trump decides to enter
shootin4love All life is precious Stop killing everything !
What a farce ..... just quarantine him
What the hell!
typical of Oz Customs... years ago they snatched my foie gras saying that I might give scraps of it to ozzie dogs who could contract some bird disease...needless to say I was fuming
Kill it without the positive test result? That’s cruel.😞
The precedent!! You landed in Victoria!!!! If you've come in from OS...it's pigeon pie time.
We will decide who enters this country and the manner in which they enter.
If it tests 'positive' for the Trump Virus, I feel we have no choice.
Can't it be put in quarantine and then cared for by a pigeon lover? Why kill it?
Why don’t they just... quarantine it?
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