Goodbye Old Friends
It has been a privilege as general manager to travel around the country and meet many, many people and particularly lots of those fanciers who are legends in their own lifetimes.  For example Keith Mott introduced me to Eric Cannon at an NFC marking and Eric sadly died a few months later.  Just about this time last year my wife Glenys and I packed our bags to go the Scottish National’s prize giving near Edinburgh.  Glenys and I will remember if for many years and not just for the fact that the boys got me doing a highland fling!  But before the informalities we had the presentation and a captivating talk from one Jimmy Hamilton.  A few week’s ago I bumped into Jimmy as he was walking around the Empress ballroom at Blackpool.  ‘You don’t remember me do you?’ he said.  I replied ‘Jimmy, how could I not remember you!’  Also met walking around the hallowed halls of the Wintergardens was former NEHU president John Brown.  I got on very well with John during work with the Confederation and he was a very thoughtful and principled man.  The calibre of John can be measured by the length of service he served with the NEHU as President.  The loss of these 2 fanciers quite suddenly it seems and so quickly after the show is a big blow and our heartfelt condolences go out to their families and friends.

More Regulations -  Convoying in and/or Liberating within the M25 area?
If you are a London based organisation or your organisations uses liberation sites within roughly the M25 area then you need to look at the following website: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/lez/default.aspx
If the vehicle that you use does not comply with the required emissions standard, you may have to either modify the vehicle or pay a daily charge.  That is a staggering £200 a day and if you don’t pay then the penalty rises to £1000.

More Regulations – New Rules on Drivers’ Hours
The regulations on drivers’ hours and tachographs have also been revised.  I am not even going to try to explain what these are as they depend on so many variants but if you convoy pigeons then I have no doubt that these regulations will apply to you.  Look at http://www.transportoffice.gov.uk/...aphlegislation.htm because these affect driving not just in the UK but also within EU countries too.  What it may mean is that for journeys over a total of 4 and a half hour’s regular breaks have to be taken.  Please refer to the publication ‘Rules on Drivers; Hours and Tachographs’ which can be downloaded from the above website or is obtainable from your local VOSA.

Dafydd Hughes – Pigeon Recovery Service
You may have seen an advert recently from Dafydd Hughes recruiting drivers to assist in pigeon repatriations.  The advert was placed by Roger Hughes and I have had dealings with Roger now for some 4 years.  He is a persistent chap and has tried twice, unsuccessfully, in the last 4 years to get a repatriation service ongoing to compete against Amtrak.  Well he is back again and is now trying to find some fanciers or ex fanciers to set up a network around the country.  If you are interested in talking to Roger in the first instance he is on 07760 176205.

Business Rates on Pigeon Clubs - Newsnight Special
You may remember a lot of hoo-ha before Christmas about a club in the North-East having to pay business rates on their basket store.  It made national news and it seems opened up the whole debate once again about pigeon racing being a sport. We were certainly inundated here at the Reddings by the media all trying to get a local handle on the story.  Well here we are 2 months on and the story has still not gone away.  I’m not quite sure how the BBC got involved but believe that Lee Fribbins at the Racing Pigeon had quite a bit to do with it but is seems that Jeremy Paxman, the infamous terrier from BBC2’s Newsnight programme, has taken an interest.  Last week a film crew spent time with several fanciers, Lee, and Geoff Bennett and Brian Tattersall in Lancashire, before motoring down the M6 to Cheltenham for a spot here too.  They will be also filming with Sport UK who I understand are claiming that they have never received a request from pigeon fanciers to be classified as a sport.  So hopefully on film you will see me with copies of letters from 1999 and 2000 from their Chief Executive, and from the Sports Minister, rejecting our request to be a sport.  The film is not scheduled to go out until March so hopefully we will get some advance notice of when it will be.

The Royal Pigeon Racing Association –v– Defra
Below are the main points of the letter from our solicitor back to DEFRA following their rejection of our request for dispensation on racing pigeons under AI legislation.

Thank you for your letter of 26 November 2007.  Our client believes that your letter and policy regarding pigeon racing is severely flawed and in particular asks you to consider the following points: -

1. In relation regarding international racing bans, our client does not accept that your actions were proportionate by waiting until 14 August to once again permit international racing from unaffected areas of France.  We are advised that following the AI outbreak in the Moselle region of France on 5 July 2007, our client fully expected continental racing to be withdrawn, and so it was.  On 23 July, the French government permitted international racing to resume.  Despite Defra being advised of this fact on the day, you waited until 14 August before permitting racing back into England.  It is not clear why it took Defra three weeks longer than the French government to determine the risk posed.  We are concerned that there may be some politics involved that suggests Defra does not consider the French government’s decision to allow pigeon racing to resume as credible.  Given that Defra has been advised on many previous occasions that there are no British liberations anywhere near the Moselle region of France, it does not strike us as proportionate to have delayed your decision for the length of time you did. 
2. Whilst we appreciate that it is required of you by European Legislation to take a risk-based approach, we find your comments in your letter to be ill-founded.  You suggest that pigeons “may” have the potential to act as a bridge between species.  From all the evidence that our client has reviewed and has consequently forwarded to Defra, there are NO cases of bridging from pigeons to other species.  If Defra can cite instances where this has occurred then please produce this evidence.  The research to which you have referred has already been provided and shows that under laboratory conditions, where racing pigeons have received fatal doses of HPAI, sometimes a hundred times the natural level, those racing pigeons have died but there have been no instances whatsoever in all the research available that pigeons have shed the disease.  It is therefore speculative for you to suggest that racing pigeons may transfer the disease from infected waterfowl to poultry.  The EFSA scientific report on migratory birds and their responsible role in the spread of HPAI of 2006 is also speculative and the conclusions are hardly conclusive.  It should be noted that racing pigeons are not quoted once within this report, which refers to only “pigeons, wood pigeons or feral pigeons” and the suggestion that the species “may” act as a bridge is, again, purely speculative and only a recommendation for further research.  Significantly, table 10.1 on page 23 of the report cites all the species that could be considered bridging species.  Racing pigeons do not appear.  We would also draw your attention to the summary on page 2 of the EFSA report and quote “the final step of risk assessment indicates that there is a negligible risk of the virus infecting domestic poultry kept under high bio-security standards and not in high poultry density areas”.  Further, on page 7 of the report at table 1.1, the interpretation of “negligible” used in the risk assessment is defined as “an event so rare that it does not merit to be considered”.  It is our client’s contention that with higher levels of bio-security used by pigeon fanciers, the daily program of feeding, cleaning and exercising is evidence that the pigeon racing fraternity within the UK more than meets the criteria of negligible risk set by the EFSA and the restrictions placed on pigeon racing by Defra are wholly disproportionate with the risk.
3. Our client is aware of the research you refer to in your letter but would point out to you that this paper was actually published in May 2006, not 2007.  It also refers to research carried out in 2004.  Further investigation of the reference shows that the research covers a period from 1981, 2001, 2002, 2004 and latterly 2006.  Our client has submitted substantial evidence to show that racing pigeons have limited susceptibility to some virus strains.  It is ironic that you dismiss the evidence we have submitted when the research considered by your reference is based on the eminent doctors Swain and Perkins who have been prominent in supporting in their own papers.  It is also poignant that this paper only states that pigeons “may” be symptomatic carriers of AI. It does not, however, show that pigeons can shed the disease to other species.  If you have scientific evidence of this, please produce the same. 
4. We regrettably have to consider the argument in your letter that pigeons could transfer the disease mechanically is manifestly flawed.  You are referred firstly to your reference to the EFSA paper in 2006.  Paragraph 6 of that paper states that “viral survival is greatest in most faeces, significant in water especially if it is cold and little survival occurs in dry and sunny conditions”.   It follows that during the summer months, the period when our client’s members do most of their racing, there would be little viral survival.  We believe it is of crucial importance that there have been no instances of racing pigeons spreading the AI virus by mechanical means whereas the two outbreaks of HPAI in poultry farms in southern France were caused by the spread of the disease mechanically by television film crews.  Our client advises that there was a similar occurrence in the UK when an LPAI outbreak at a poultry farm was transmitted to another local poultry farm by workers who operated on both sites.  The more recent HPAI outbreak on the Suffolk/Norfolk border proves that humans are a much more dangerous facilitator of the spread of HPAI.

   We also find your comments on racing pigeons mechanically transferring the virus contradictory given the information you have provided on your own website.  The risk assessment on AI in public parks and parklands and open waters mentions specifically that “Bird faeces falling to the ground in a park are usually semi-liquid.  This binds the viral particles within the droppings and they are at this stage not hazardous unless they are allowed to contaminate hands or foodstuffs.  The number of viable virus particles in these faeces will rapidly start to fall under the effects of drying, UV light and other environmental factors.  In the absence of a suitable animal hosts, the viruses cannot reproduce, and, together with draying and/or rain and park cleaning, the virus will be further diluted and dispersed.  Direct contact with dried faecal material is not likely to be hazardous as the number of live viral particles contained will have dropped substantially (drying of the virus helps to kill it).  Inhalation, ingestion and eye contamination risks could still theoretically occur as small particles of drying faecal matrix breaks away and is blown up into the air, entering people’s mouths and eyes.  However, because of the massive dilution of such particles in the outdoor environment, it is unlikely that this theoretical mechanism of infection will present any risk to humans.  Aerosols of dried bird faeces are only likely to present a hazard in large-scale indoor poultry flock premises where the close containment of the building and the very large quantities of poultry faeces present may create a risk”.

   If your case is that dried droppings do not represent a risk or a threat, then of course it is a reasonable conclusion that any racing pigeon landing in an affected French area that picks up contaminated bird droppings mechanically would find that by the time the pigeon has crossed back over the Channel (at least 90 minutes to 2 hours), the droppings would have dried following interaction with wind and other elements.   According to the Defra risk assessment paper, these dried droppings are highly unlikely to be hazardous and it would be impossible for them to contribute to the spread of AI within the British Isles.  It is accepted that mechanical spread is possible given the two HPAI outbreaks in southern France being worsened by the media.  Our client therefore finds it abhorrent that Defra can raise an argument that pigeon racing presents a risk to the spread of the virus in Britain’s water parks without also closing the same to human entrance.

5. It also appears to our client that your risk-based approach is inconsistent when after the December HPAI outbreak in Suffolk/Norfolk, you permitted shooting to resume within the protection zone.  Given the fact that man has been proven to spread AI mechanically, it seems irresponsible that such permission was granted, unless of course the risk is in fact minimal and mechanical transmission by racing pigeons is just a ruse to substantiate the discrimination against the racing pigeon.
6. In paragraph 9, Defra attempts to justify imposing a seven-day isolation period on pigeons returning from an international race.  We attach for your consideration the article “Avian Influenza and Pigeons – Recent Information” by Gordon A. Chalmers.  This veterinary research document considers all the most recent research concerning pigeons.  It makes reference to a report by Werner et al in 2007 demonstrating a lack of transmission to chickens despite the pigeons being infected with massive amounts of the virus (more than would be experienced in normal environmental conditions), and the chickens who shared the cage with the infected pigeons did not die.  As a control, chickens in a separate environment were inoculated with the same dosage as the pigeons and died within forty-eight hours.  We would submit that this is conclusive proof that pigeons do not shed the AI virus and that the seven-day isolation period serves no useful purpose other than to restrict pigeon fanciers from their activities.  You will note that the research referred to shows poultry mixing with infected pigeons and therefore coming into contact with droppings and using the same water, with no ill effects to the poultry.  Therefore, any isolation period is simply unnecessary.
7. We have also been advised by our client’s members in the Channel Islands that your actions have effectively destroyed the participation of Channel Island fanciers in English races.  Your requirements are that unless the pigeons can undergo a twenty-eight day isolation period in mainland Britain, they are not entitled to take part.  Clearly, this is totally disproportionate as fanciers cannot be expected to race pigeons which have not trained for the previous twenty-eight days.  You would not expect a marathon runner to do nothing for twenty-eight day before a marathon.  There is therefore a welfare issue in imposing such an isolation period.  Defra’s justification for treating the Channel Islands in this way is apparently due to their geographical proximity to the French mainland.  This is nonsensical given that Jersey is 14 miles and Guernsey 30 miles from the Normandy coast, whereas the distance between Dover and Calais is 20 miles.  We therefore require that the Channel Islands be classed as part of the UK with regard to the licensing of pigeon racing.

We believe that a combination of all the research that we have provided to Defra establishes that whilst racing pigeons are susceptible to large doses of the AI virus, they do not necessarily die from it and they most definitely do not shed the disease particles in quantities sufficient to infect poultry, waterfowl or other wild birds.  Therefore, permitting pigeon racing both nationally and internationally as well as bird gathering would present only a negligible risk, as defined earlier, to the spread of the virus.  We therefore require steps to be taken to ensure that should there be any further AI outbreaks, and the cause is not identified as being that of a racing pigeon, our client’s member’s activities will not be curtailed.  Although you state that you take into account the financial implications of any such bans, were you aware that the ban in Suffolk/Norfolk of bird gatherings, whilst at the same time permitting shooting, resulted in one pigeon stud farm losing approximately £10,000 from not being able to attend an exhibition?

We would remind you that it is within your power to make concessions for racing pigeons under EC Directive 2005/94.  You are referred to Section 6, Article 33, paragraph 4 wherein racing pigeons are provided special consideration to allow derogations from restrictions imposed within protection and surveillance zones.  It is clear that the EC recognises racing pigeons are something of a special case as they provide, by this Directive, member states the option to make special arrangements for racing pigeons.  Defra’s policy of placing a national ban on all bird gatherings and racing seems to have failed to consider the derogation and given the financial impact such bans would have on our client’s members, is certainly not proportionate.  The ability to derogate applies when HPAI is present and therefore further supports our contention that the scientific evidence available confirms the risk posed by racing pigeons is negligible.  The aforementioned pigeon stud which has housed its pigeon stock for months prior to the recent HPAI outbreak in swans clearly is a candidate for such derogation under Article 33 paragraph 4.  Could you please explain why this was not granted?

If you are still of the opinion that the risk posed by racing pigeons is more than negligible then could we invite to arrange your own investigations into the spread of Avian Flu by racing pigeons, to provide definitive evidence that your previous actions and any future restrictions are justifiably proportionate.

We look forward to your response and hope that the same is received within a timeframe shorter than three months.

Yours faithfully
RICKERBYS

So we will again have to sit back and wait for a response.  I hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel for Ponderosa Stud because they have certainly been affected big time by the latest restrictions in Dorset.  On receipt of the DEFRA response Council will decide, if they have to, what further action to take.  I do believe they are moved if needs be to take this matter to the highest level.

Peter Bryant
General Manager
The Royal Pigeon Racing Association