Japanese racing pigeon flies across Pacific to Canada

OTTAWA: A plucky pigeon that flew across the Pacific Ocean from Japan will be bred by a bird lover in Canada hoping its progeny will make top long-distance racers, an animal rescue official said. The pigeon was discovered tired and thin at a Canadian air force base on Vancouver Island in westernmost Canada and taken to an animal rescue center near Comox, British Columbia where it was treated for a common bird parasite and nursed back to health.
“We believe it took off from land in Japan and got confused or got caught up in a storm and got lost before eventually hopscotching its way to Canada, stopping and sleeping on freighters along the way,” the Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society’s Reg Westcott told AFP on Monday. The one-year-old bird was among roughly 8,000 race pigeons released on May 9 in Haboro, Hokkaido, in northern Japan for a 1,000-km race, according to owner Hiroyasu Takasu, 73, of Ishioka, Ibaraki.
The pedigree bird was among 10 racers owned by the retired businessman, an avid hobbyist. “I have never heard of pigeons going to Canada. It’s incredible,” Takasu told AFP in Tokyo.