Racing Pigeons sought by Chinese

1. 80

   Stacie Lposted 14 years ago

   Chinese spend big on Belgian racing pigeons
   AP
   
       *
   
   
   Yi Minna AP – In this photo taken Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011, China's Yi Minna, the Chief Operating Officer at the PiPa …
   By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Raf Casert, Associated Press – 43 mins ago
   
   KERMT, Belgium – The coop where Blue Prince lived stands empty now, the racing pigeon gone for good.
   
   At euro156,000 ($ 205,000) for barely a pound of feathers and lightning-fast fowl, Blue Prince has a one-way ticket to pampered retirement and lifelong breeding in China, which these days has become a predictable destination for topflight birds.
   
   Over the past month, two auctions of Belgian racing pigeons have set one record after another, confirming Belgium as the age-old prime breeding hub of the birds — and China as the new center of global demand.
   
   "They want to have the best pigeons, own the best pigeons, breed with the best pigeons," said Stefan Roosen after wealthy Chinese buyers helped push the sale of the 218-bird colony of his late father, Pros, to a single-auction world record euro1.368 million ($1.8 million) last weekend. In general, the top birds bought in Belgium are not raced in China — it would be too expensive to lose them — but their offspring are.
   
   In European pigeon racing, birds are taken up to 1,000 kilometers (700 miles) from their lofts and released. Races are decided by which bird flies back the fastest.
   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_ … ey_pigeons
   
   the Chinese economy is going to be a force to reckon with..they are buying up and copying anything that can make money..

   replyreport
2. 65

   diogenesposted 14 years ago

   I have a love/hate with the Chinese outlook on world wildlife, which is well on the hate side at the moment.  I am suspicious of any of their motives where aquiring creatures - or parts of creatures - regardless of what they say about why they are doing it.  They are almost single-handedly responsible for rhinos, gorillas, tigers and more being threatened with extinction in the wild due to their insane and obviously unecessary desire for bogus fertility medications extracted from these hapless animals's bodies.  Maybe they have discovered racing pigeon's beaks hold some rare elixer to promote harder phalluses!  I mesn...fertility drugs?  How many more Chinese do we (and they) need?  There are about 1.3 billion already!
   Bob as diogense

   replyreport