So you'd like to go pigeon racing in Australia - read this first to save yourself some pain!

Why would you want to be involved in pigeon racing in Australia?

About ten years ago, after an absence of nearly thirty years from pigeon racing, I was persuaded by a business supplier whom I knew quite well, to come back to the fancy and give it a go again.

I should have taken the advice that he gave me at the time, which was to stay out of the crap and the politics of the sport and just concentrate on the pigeons.

I wish that I had have taken his advice. In fact I wish that I had never gone back to pigeon racing in the first place.

Pigeon racing in Australia is mostly made up of well meaning people who go about their involvement with the pigeons and the racing side of things, in a friendly, passionate and enthusiastic manner. Unfortunately for those people however there is a small minority of people also involved in pigeon racing, who are in it for their own personal benefit and not for the sport in general.

These are the people who shaft their fellow pigeon racers for whatever dollars that they can screw out of them and who will say and do anything to keep things that way. It is these same people who hide behind their computers and write the most scandalous and defamatory things about their fellow pigeon racers on the two privately owned pigeon racing forums in Australia.

When I was a boy, pigeon racing was something that everybody did – well at least nearly everybody. Where I grew up in the leafy Melbourne suburb of East Malvern, I recall that just about every street in my immediate neighbourhood had at least one serious pigeon racer residing in it and of course, my suburb had its own pigeon racing club, the Malvern Flying Club.

Many other suburbs were the same – nearby were the Ashburton, Hawthorn, Oakleigh, Brighton and Moorabbin clubs.

But most importantly, there was in those days, a deep spirit of camaraderie in pigeon racing, at least there was in the part of pigeon racing that I was involved. Perhaps this was one of the main reasons why I came back many years later with my sons, so that they too could enjoy my boyhood passion – pigeon racing. But, boy was I wrong.

I very quickly learned that pigeon racing today has more to do with reducing the number of pigeon racers whom the other pigeon racers have to race against. Just take a look out how the older, more established pigeon racers shy away from change and defend the old ways of doing things.

And then there was the way that my younger teenaged sons viewed pigeon racing – they regard pigeon racers as a bunch of “old schmucks who argue about nothing”. And pigeon racing wants to attract younger people to its ranks. Yeah right!

Another example of such resistance to change is demonstrated by how slow pigeon racing as a hobby has been in  grasping the concept of moving with the times and modernising so that pigeon keeping and racing would stay in step with modern society’s theories and expectations about using animals for one’s own enjoyment.

No sirree! Not with pigeon racing in Australia. It is little wonder that the average amount of time that a newcomer to pigeon racing in Australia spends in pigeons is only five years – some more, some less but all the same, it isn’t for long until they wake up like I did.

Pigeon racing is unable to arrest the decline in numbers across Australia – just as it has an inane inability to encourage and assist newcomers to the hobby. Note that I refer to pigeon racing as a hobby. Some refer to it as a sport. What a joke – transporting hundreds, sometimes thousands of defenceless, vulnerable, sometimes ill-prepared racing pigeons distances of up to 1,200 kilometres  away from their home, to be released and expected to make their way home, is hardly what one would call a sport.

This is where the cruelty aspect plays a large part in the decline of pigeon racing also. Racing pigeons are more often than not, transported very roughly in conditions which would not be tolerated for other livestock such as dogs, horses, sheep and cattle. There are strictly regulated standards for the carriage of these forms of livestock. But not for the poor old racing pigeon.

Pigeon racing in Australia is cruel. In Europe and the USA, racing pigeons are treated well when being transported to release points. They are carried in purpose-built, air-conditioned transport vehicles which are designed for the purpose.

Back in Australia, racing pigeons are transported to release points mostly in open trucks, semi-trailers and box trailers, with little else more than a tarpaulin tied across them. These modes of transport generally have the wrong sort of suspension to smooth the ride for the pigeons. One particularly bad example is when semi-trailer vehicles are used to transport pigeons. Most often, these trailers are equipped with air-bag suspension which is fine, but air-bag suspension doesn’t work properly until it is carrying certain weights. A load of racing pigeons is quite light really and certainly nowhere near the twenty odd tonnes which the crappy air-bag equipped open-trailer vehicles are equipped with.

Then there are the equally as important issues of sending of ill prepared, sick or injured racing pigeons to races;  the predation of racing pigeons by the once endangered peregrine falcon which, because of its non-selective hunting tactics actually cause far more injuries and harm to racing pigeons than what they actually kill for food. When a racing pigeon is terrorised by a hunting falcon or more likely a pair of hunting falcons, the pigeon either tries to outrun the hunter or seeks refuge in a tree, on the ground, on a building or some other structure, more often than not coming to grief in trying to escape.

Often injured and exposed, they then become easy prey for every other predator – goshawks, cats, dogs, owls at night – everything eats pigeon! Could you imagine being eaten alive – oh hang on, I nearly forgot – I recall being told by a wise old pigeon racer once that “pigeons feel pain differently to us”. I suppose that being eaten alive is sort of fast I guess!

Over the years, I observed many times, a few forward thinking participants in pigeon racing try to bring about change, radical change in some instances, only to be shot down, criticised, abused and harangued  for putting up new ideas. And you guessed it, those same self-interested pigeon racing participants and their mindless, stooge followers are always ready, willing and able to quickly dismiss and put down the fresh ideas of their fellow pigeon racers in order that they can continue in the profit making, with the “always the same pigeon racers winning the races” and the non-progressive aspects of pigeon racing in Australia.

Pigeon racing is a mugs game – it is full of mugs many of whom are just in it for themselves. It is little wonder that the young people of Australia don't want to get involved - they're the smart ones for staying away from pigeon racing.