Pigeon Races

Here, pigeons that have plastic bands around their ankles are for racing.

Thankfully, someone pointed this out to me. Unassisted, I would have assumed either escaped domesticate or part of an ecology observation and shrugged it off. Nope, it's for racing. The band has the owner's contact information and usually a prize for calling in a found bird.

I'm told the races have large prizes. Thus, breeding, raising, and owning successful racing pigeons can be very lucrative. Naturally, a successful racing pigeon is valuable. How valuable? Valuable enough to create a secondary market.

The slightly-less-than-scrupulous capitalize on pigeon-napping. These pigeon-nappers will strategically set up giant nets to trap racing birds. Then, they'll call the owners and demand a ransom for its return. Devious... I'm slightly amused by the whole thing.

Bird racers are not. Obviously, it throws a wrench in the bird racing schematic. It's such a problem that the government has outlawed it, and cities hire scouts to find the bird-nappers. My paragliding coach tells me he's sometimes hired by a city to do aerial scouting before a big race.

I wonder how, "Give me 10,000 unmarked bills if you ever want to see your prized pigeon again." sounds in Mandarin...