BBC Look East
Jonathon Sage of Weeley in Essex has been networking with his local BBC television to get pigeon racing featured. Due to his efforts he advises me that there will be a pre-race coverage of the BICC Tours race going out on Friday 22nd June at about 6.30PM. There will be a Weather forecast by Julie Ranger as well.

If anyone has Satellite then they can receive the programme by searching for the local channel section. Jonathon tells me that if many people then either write in or phone to say they liked it that will get rated high and the more chance we have of them covering another race which can then be used to move on to National TV.

DEFRA licence – 7 day rule
There has been a lot of comment over the last few weeks about the 7 day isolation ruling and clearly it is difficult for some fanciers to manage. Despite representations made to DEFRA by me and also by individual fanciers to DEFRA via their MPs the answer has been resolutely the same. Without the isolation period built into the licence conditions the Secretary of State for the Environment would not have agreed to continental racing. In their protests fanciers have mentioned the compensation awarded to Bernard Matthews as being wrong seeing as it was he that brought the HPAI outbreak into the country. Whilst I am definitely not defending him or his actions I can see the DEFRA rationale for this. Firstly, Matthews has only been compensated for the slaughter of healthy poultry. The policy exists for any other farmer/smallholder who has to destroy livestock by order of the Ministry and it was the same under the Foot and Mouth outbreak a few years back. The payment of compensation is also an important tool in the management of infectious diseases. If a poultry farmer knew that he had an infectious disease (bird flu, Newcastle disease etc) in his flock the important thing is that he notifies DEFRA of such. The control of such a disease will mean that healthy stock has to be destroyed. If there was no compensation of course the farmer may be reluctant to ‘come clean’ and report an infectious disease which would certainly have more serious implications.

Having received a query on racing from the continent one Saturday and then inland the following Sunday I contacted DEFRA for advice. The have responded as follows:

“Condition (i) of the General Licence states that pigeons returning from races from outside the British Isles are expected to complete a full 7 day isolation period (or 21 days if their return time is longer than 72 hours). The 7 day period commences as soon as the bird (or final returning bird if an isolation area is shared) is put into isolation. For example if a bird is put into isolation at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, its isolation period ends at 3pm the following Saturday and it can then be taken to a gathering (even on the same afternoon).

However, isolating returning birds is a risk reduction measure and 7 days is the absolute minimum that would be recommended for a worthwhile isolation period. It would be good practice to, where possible, maximise the period of time between gatherings because although the average incubation period for highly pathogenic avian influenza is 3-5 days, the maximum is 21 days. Therefore we could not recommend racing on a weekly basis.”

This at least is a little bit of cheer and certainly a way around the strict 7 day Saturday to Saturday ruling.

Peter Bryant
General Manager
The Royal Pigeon Racing Association