This month's notes are more of a news update than an article on pigeons, but hopefully it will help to keep you informed on the current situation regarding Avian Influenza, which as you are all probably aware has now reached France. Germany and Holland have both placed containment restriction on all birds although there are currently no outbreaks within those two countries (Germany however does have an outbreak on one of its islands off the coast of northern Germany).
The dreaded Avian Influenza virus, in various guises it seems, is still creeping inexorably closer towards our shores, but other than containing our stock to within the confines of their loft and aviaries, adopting very good hygiene procedures and having bio-security measures in place, there seems to be very little else that we can sensibly do to protect our stock from the long arm of officialdom.
The latest suspected outbreak, in the mouth of the River Somme, if confirmed, now brings the virus to considerably less than one hundred miles off the Kent coast. But the news is not yet all gloom and doom. Defra are still quite regularly declaring that the British Isles are considered as very low risk, though if I were still actively into pigeon racing I would be getting quite concerned about the prospects for the coming few months.
If Defra do slap a containment order on birds that will just about finish racing off for this season's old birds at least, as the fanciers will have little or no opportunity to train their birds. Already it is reported as being almost certain that there will be no channel racing at all this year, which is very bad news for the long distance South Road racing enthusiasts.
We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope that at least our own summer events can be salvaged. The situation could, at best, be classed as being somewhat 'fluid' and what is allowed today could well be banned tomorrow. We should all be concerned however about the type of garbage being bandied about by one of the less scrupulous 'comic' newspapers. Why any sane person would want to actually buy this rubbish is totally beyond me.
Unfortunately some people do, but what is even worse, some of them actually believe the tripe that is printed in it and in this case that can only be bad news for pigeon fanciers. One of the major soaps is not helping matters either by broadcasting quite erroneous, often misleading and always damaging information as a part of its supposed 'reflection of life' daily storyline. The producers should be hung, drawn and quartered.
