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.
Hope Australia can stand up and stop being America’s watchdog from killing its pigeon!
All they sympathetic snowflakes don’t realise that this pigeon, illegally entered this country and as such needs to be set as an example for other’s who may follow
there is absolutely no scientific evidence that covid -19 transfers to pigeons WHAT Authorities? Stupidities rather. Stop this knee jerk ignorant decision. It looks like a bird of peace Maybe that's its problem.
Only in Australia
You might kill this one. But more will come to settle, and also bring their convict pigeons to remote ledges for minor offences like stealing chips.... Soon they will bring smallpox and death which won't be recognised until over a century later.
Birds migrate all the time. That’s ridiculous
It’s a flying disease ridde rat, people! Come on 🙄
Remember also to cull the millions of Tasmanian Mutton Birds returning to Australia each year from Russia’s Far East via Alaska, the US West Coast and the Pacific, then finally landing in Tassy.
This should be embarrassing.
Yeah well, if we let him in all of his friends will want to come too and we will be over run. Maybe cage him at manus island until he wants to go home 🙄
Catch and quarantine. Then give it the US medal of honour awarded to our PM.
Aw c'mon, Send it to Christmas or Manus Island or maybe quarantine it in a hotel...istandwiththepidgeon
Humans and killing...
Probably that stinking politician Barnaby Joyce wants to kill it , he thinks it belongs to Johnny Depp .
Oh! No! Please quarantine this poor thing who has found a home here in Melbourne. Obviously, this little birdie knows there is peace over here than his home back in the US. We are an animal loving nation. Please show mercy to our foreign friend and spare it’s life. 🕊🕊🕊🐦🐦🐦
Peak lunacy...
Send it back! Little bugger earned that much respect, didn't it AusBorderForce
Disgraceful!!!! Quarantine him and put him back on a plane to his owner!!!
Of Course, it landed in Melbourne not Sydney. They were shooting Magpie's in Gippsland a few weeks ago, BC they were swooping.
You name a bird ‘Joe’ and create publicity to kill ‘Joe Biden’ What a way of maintaining relation with the the new US government.
StopThePigeon
That's absolutely disgusting and cruel and wtf 😲🙈
Just another depressing story....
RebJ9 FreeJoe SaveJoeThePigeon
That is not a racing pigeon.
What would you expect. We kill and eat the two animals on our coat of arms
Birds migrate to Australia all the time, are you going to round them up too and kill them. Sometimes I have to wonder about the ‘intelligence’ level of our bureaucrats.🤪🙄🤬
I think we can afford to put it up in a hotel for two weeks.
It would have acquired bird immunity by now so set it free
Don’t kill ! So ridiculous that millions kualas, kangaroos, and also special Australian animals have died in bushfire last year !! So how a pigeon can hurt the australia environment !!
asylum seeker. He must have fled USA for a reason
Flying her back to America I’m sure someone will take her
Did it sail in on the rubyprincess by any chance? How did it get past border security. stoptheboats. No stopthepigeons ridiculous letitlive 😜
The Liberals do it to humans escaping war, persecution and oppression. Why should a single pigeon be exempt. From the US. Probanly carrying a strain of Covid anyhow, such as the US military who arrived this week. Will they be euthanased? I suspect not.
Gees. Glad we don’t treat all incoming travellers like that - even if they might carry a virus. Spare the poor bird!!
No why? Seriously. Too cruel with everything else going on. Tested it for COVID.
That’s horrible - Keep him alive - his a record breaking pigeon 🦅
🤨 sooo they’re gonna kill migratory birds and bats too then aye .... cos I mean .... ya know, they’re quarantine risks too. It’s probably taken 1000 shits since it got here, anything it has, is already released
That’s disgusting
Ridiculous. Birds fly across seas all the time. Leave the bird alone.
Ridiculous, there are 100’s of birds that would be transiting via ships that come to Australia and no one has a clue. The only realised as this guy reported it if not this bird would be alive and do it’s thing like the others do. Stupid and senseless reaction.
A threat to the poultry industry apparently . Unlike the millions of indigenous plants and animals that died last year ... Priorities .. 🙄🔥
Ah, why kill it, quarantine it. We don’t just randomly kill people that fly here because they are a Covid risk, do we? 🧐
Oh, no!
Stick him on a plane with Tones or one of the other specials that seem to be freely moving between countries and send him home pretty sure the government jet flying all over the world recently for job interviews could fit a cage in it.
Name it Twitter then remove its wings.
The difference between this and other birds that migrate is (1) its point of origin and (2) this is not part of any natural migration.
Better get your skates on mate.. Vic aint the place to be
Meanwhile imported Minor birds are running riot everywhere and in this area there breeding like rabbit's same as the cane toads I haven't seen the same concern by Governments or there Bureaucrats don't worry about that as long as we pay our rates and taxes .
savejoe
The only thing that presents a quarantine risk are our politicians...
Contract tracies better be getting paid for that overtime
Send it back! Little bigger earned that much respect, didn't it AusBorderForce
This is a 100% australian response and sometimes I am so glad I left 20 years ago, probably to never live permanently there again. Put the damn bird in a birdcage for 30 days and then set it free!
Let the bird live !!
How many birds fly to and from the northern hemisphere each year?
Poor Bird he should of gone on the same plane as the tennis players
Couldn't just send it back from where she come? Oh...that will be viewed as discrimination. Okay, let's kill it then.
How Australian.
Can’t he pick fruit and veggies for the farmers, he might be able to live on their generous wages and conditions 😂🇦🇺💩🕳
When we will we wake up to this crap
Given that birds migrate here from overseas all the time, this is ridiculous. Typical Australia - kill a good news story when the world has had such a dark time. PotatoHead is going to be so proud.
Predictable
Let Bill Lawry take care of it.
What the actual fuck.
SaveThePigeon 🐦
Next they will be targeting the ocean those dam sea lion's 🤣
BirdlifeOz BirdLife_News
Can't they just take it to Christmas island
😡 that’s just bloody cruel SaveThePigeon
🤣
It’s planing a coo stolenjoke
HandoWeapon absolutely preposterous
Why can’t it go in quarantine like the infected tennis player can?
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