Pigeons go missing in UK ‘triangle’

Published on 26/08/2012 00:46

PIGEON racers say scores of their birds are vanishing in what some claim is Britain’s avian Bermuda Triangle.

Fanciers say they are experiencing “disastrous” and unprecedented losses in an area between North Yorkshire and County Durham.

In one event, only 13 of the 232 birds released in the region returned to Scotland.

In another, 200 failed to show up after 1,000 were released over the triangle, which spans from Thirsk and Wetherby to Consett.

Keith Simpson, of the East Cleveland Federation of
Pigeon Fanciers, said: “They’re calling it the Bermuda Triangle, but who knows where they are going?

“It’s heartbreaking, and some people’s seasons are 
finished because of this.”

He said his club received 
reports of 24 dead birds on a North Sea oil rig 40 miles off the Yorkshire coast.

Simpson added that it was impossible to say why flocks were going AWOL, but it could be down to freak weather patterns or illness.

Pigeon fancier Gordon Braban, secretary of the Washington Celtic Homing Society in Tyne and Wear, said he races some of his birds from the south of France to Newcastle, so losses are not uncommon.

However, in a recent race from Wetherby to Newcastle, a route that crosses the triangle, he released 1,014 birds and an unprecedented 200 were lost.