AI Update
Well it has been a roller coaster couple of weeks with DEFRA and at last the ban on gatherings has been relaxed and shows and sales can take place , with the exception if you live in the restricted area in Norfolk and Suffolk where there are still strict movement controls. The relaxing of the ban did not save the NEHU show in total although they were able to contact most of the people who had offered pigeons for the charity sale. A concerted effort was made lobbying DEFRA over the last 2 weeks to try to overturn the ban on shows and gatherings some 200 miles from the infected area. Neither could I see the sense in DEFRA allowing shooting to continue in the surveillance zone where the gunmen could potentially spread any disease mechanically by picking up AI infected droppings on their footwear. Isn’t that why DEFRA only let us race from 400 miles in 2006 so what was the difference? Anyway, last Friday beckoned and the ban has now been lifted. Needless to say bio security measures still need to be taken at shows and sales. One good thing that came out of the stakeholder meetings was that I was able to ask the chief vet chairing the stakeholder meetings why we hadn’t had a response from the Secretary of State to our legal letter. “Was it because he held the pigeon fraternity in contempt or was someone at DEFRA just incompetent?” The response was received by return and I am assured that a letter is on the SofS ‘s desk for signature.

Help - I need YOUR assistance
Did you have a show or a sale cancelled because of the recent ban on gatherings? If so please write to me or e mail and tell me how much money you have lost, perhaps from hotel or venue bookings, loss of sales in comparison to the same period last year etc, etc. This information is vitally important to state our case against DEFRA for the over reaction to the recent situation. I hope to meet with DEFRA in early December so please put pen to paper urgently so that we can collate all the statistics.

DEFRA Press Release
For your information the full DEFRA press release is as follows:

Avian influenza update: bird gatherings permitted outside restricted zone
Defra today announced that it is lifting the ban on bird gatherings, shows and pigeon racing which has been in place since confirmation of avian influenza on 12 November. This decision is based on expert consideration of surveillance and tracing results. As a precautionary measure, the ban will remain in place within the Restricted, Surveillance and Protection Zones in Suffolk and Norfolk. Birds from those zones will not be able to be taken to gatherings in the rest of the country. Bird gatherings must take place under the normal biosecurity, notification and record-keeping requirements of a general licence, which can be found on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk [opens in new window]
Further information on avian influenza can be found on the Defra website at:
www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/ai/index.htm [opens in new window]
The general licence for bird gatherings has now been re-issued and is available on the Defra website. This covers falconry displays, fairs, markets, shows, exhibitions and pigeon races. ‘Gathering’ for the purposes of this licence means the arrangement by a person of the collecting together of poultry or other captive birds from different epidemiological groups at one location.

Rumours, Rumours
It seemed incredible to me that I took a call from a fancier last week to ask me to confirm that racing had been banned for the 2008 season. This is absolute rubbish and people spreading these rumours ought to be shot! My personal opinion is that the licence conditions will be no worse than they have been for the 2007 season. But you also have my assurance that we will endeavour to improve on the 7 day ruling of isolation following a continental race and improve the lot of the Channel Islanders. I have already spoken with Glynn Picton of the WHPU and Tom Dawson of the NEHU and we are of like mind to do our best for the fancy nationally.

BHW Show of the Year
The Show Committee met recently and before the gatherings ban was lifted and announced that, with or without pigeons for sale or showing, the Show will go on. This is a very big year for the Show as the total of donations made since the Show’s inception in 1973 will break the £2 million barrier. We are pleased that another £25,000 will go to the Pigeon Fanciers Lung Research Team which benefits fanciers throughout Britain. It will mean that the team can continue to research this dreadful disease by sponsoring a PhD student for the next 2 years.

A Manic Monday
The office was thrown into confusion on Monday this week with the news that a pigeon club in Northumberland had been told to pay business rates on its basket store. Lots of news stories suddenly appeared out of TV and radio and we received literally dozens of calls from national and regional media wanting a local spin on things. Was it a problem? Why aren’t you a spotrt anymore? (as was incorrectly reported). The truth of the matter is that pigeon racing is not classed as a sport. Many representations to various bodies have been made over the years, the most recent only a few months ago by none other than Gerry Francis who went to see Sport UK to try to get us recognised as a sport. Gerry tells me that he wasn’t in their offices for more than 10 minutes and he basically wasted his time, they weren’t interested. He has however managed to get us recognised with the CCPR, the next best thing, and this organisation may be able to assist us in our goal for sport recognition. The reason we are told we are not a sport is because it is the pigeon that does the racing and exertion, not the fancier.

Pigeons outside AI Legislation?
Over the last week and several times at the NEHU show people asked me about DEFRA regulations and the fact that pigeons had been taken out of the AI legislation recently. This is not strictly true. The EC regulation is COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 318/2007 of 23 March 2007 which lays down animal health conditions for imports of certain birds into the Community and the quarantine conditions thereof. The particular paragraph that people are singling out is:

(12) The animal health risk posed by racing pigeons that are brought into the Community to be released again so that they may fly back to their origin is such that they should be excluded form the scope of this Regulation.

You have to read this in context with the rest of the document and not just this paragraph. What this does mean is that a non EU country (say Croatia – oops bad example!) can travel to say Italy to release its pigeons if it is intended that the pigeons fly back to Croatia immediately, without the pigeons having to undergo any quarantine. We have already addressed this anomaly with DEFRA as it seems that ‘Johnny Foreigner’ can enter an EU country to release pigeons without restriction yet if we wish to go to France to release we have all sorts of restrictions imposed on us.

Peter Bryant
General Manager