Joe the pigeon made it across the Pacific to Australia. Now he’s on death row.

[quote] An Alabama racing pigeon that survived a lengthy and mysterious trip across the Pacific Ocean — landing last month in an Australian backyard — is now facing the death penalty.

[quote] Local authorities, worried about disease, say they plan to kill the bird as soon as they can catch it.

[quote] The exhausted pigeon, sporting a blue band on its ankle, “rocked up” to the home of aptly named Melbourne resident Kevin Celli-Bird last month, the man said.

[quote] “It was pretty emaciated so I crushed up some biscuits,” he told Australia’s 9News.

[quote] The bird, a racing pigeon registered to an owner in Montgomery, Ala., is believed to have escaped a competition in Oregon in October, possibly hitching a ride aboard a cargo ship before reaching Australia.

[quote] But now the pigeon, which Celli-Bird has named Joe (after President-elect Joe Biden) hangs out in his backyard, bathing in the fountain and has even befriended a local dove.

[quote] “I think that he just decided that since I’ve given him some food and he’s got a spot to drink, that’s home,” Celli-Bird said, the Associated Press reported.

[quote] But while Joe may have survived the 8,000-mile journey, Australia has some of the world’s strictest quarantine laws, and a pigeon from the United States could be carrying exotic diseases that threaten Australia’s biosecurity, authorities said.

[quote] Under normal circumstances, importing a pigeon would require permits, health certificates and a reservation at a quarantine facility.

[quote] In 2015, Australian authorities threatened to euthanize two dogs belonging to Johnny Depp and his then-wife Amber Heard, after they sneaked the Yorkshire terriers into the country without the proper permits.

[quote] “We found out he snuck them in because we saw them taking them to a poodle groomer,” former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce said in an interview at the time.

[quote] “If we start letting movie stars — even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation, why we don't just break the laws for everybody?” he said. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo [the two dogs] buggered off back to the United States.”

[quote] An Agriculture Department statement said the bird was “not permitted to remain in Australia” because “it could compromise Australia’s food security and our wild bird populations,” according to the AP.

[quote] “It poses a direct biosecurity risk to Australian bird life and our poultry industry,” the statement said.

[quote] On Friday, a twist emerged that raised the pigeon’s prospects of avoiding an untimely death. A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union said the band on Joe’s leg appeared to be fake.

[quote] “The bird band in Australia is counterfeit and not traceable,” Deone Roberts said, according to the Associated Press. “It definitely has a home in Australia and not the U.S.” She added that counterfeit bird bands were turning up “more and more.”

[quote] Australian officials were looking into the matter. “If Joe has come in a way that has not met our strict biosecurity measures, then bad luck Joe, either fly home or face the consequences,” Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack told reporters.

The fake band means it's not actually the American pigeon, then, and therefore not subject to quarantine rules.

We’re trying to save a pigeon?

A rat with wings?

All I know about pigeons is if they have sex they die.

Think about the lives of these people who spend their time counterfeiting pigeon legbands.

You thought you were having a bad time.

Is this why Jacqueline Bouvier's grandson is speaking like this?

Yeah, I saw this. Depressing. Australia, do the right thing and send him home.

Is he supper yet?

Kill it or it will try smuggling its relatives in

He's been saved. Turns out the band was fake.

[quote] Turns out the band was fake.

Bullshit.

Why would anyone counterfeit a pigeon legband? Do people sell fake racing pigeons?

So a pigeon hobbyist can make up a story, R12.

So Joe's life will be spared?

Any updates on our beloved Joe?

Maybe Kayleigh the pigeon headed whore should take note.