Belgians accuse Chinese gangs of pigeon theft

Pigeon breeders have accused Chinese gangs of killing and mutilating prize birds in Belgium, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

64 birds have gone missing from the lofts of top fanciers in Belgium over the past few days.

The connection with China was made after witnesses concerned about fly-tipping photographed two "Asian-looking" men dumping bags of rubbish in an Antwerp woodland beauty spot last weekend.

Investigators then found that the sacks contained fourteen dead pigeons, each with a leg cut off and identity tags removed, according to the Telegraph.

A local breeder reported the theft of 14 birds the same day.

(Pigeon photo courtesy of ecosafewildlife.com)

Two Chinese nationals questioned by Belgian police on Saturday said that they were there on business "in the world of pigeon fanciers."
The men were allowed to leave after they presented legitimate proof of purchase of Belgian pigeons.

But the Royal Belgian Federation of Pigeon Fanciers are adamant that Chinese gangs are orchestrating bird theft, saying there have been ten cases of stolen top-birds so far this year.

Rather than take champion birds alive, the thieves are killing them for their ID tags which are much easier to smuggle.

"All they have to do is fit the stolen identification rings in China onto a bird a fraction of the value, which they then pass off as an ace racer," federation president Pierre De Rijst was quoted as saying.

"It really is an epidemic, a true plague," he said.

A pigeon that has won a national or international competition can be worth more than 14,000 dollars US, and birds in Belgium are renowned worldwide.

Last week in Britain a breeder had 43 of his top birds stolen from his allotment site, the Hartlepool Mail reported. The loss was worth up to 4,000 dollars US.

In a separate incident in Northern Ireland last month 100 pigeons were killed in a fire strongly suspected to be the work of arsonists, The Racing Pigeon Weekly reported.

Breeders saved some pigeons by opening up lofts to allow the birds to escape, but some found alive were so badly burned they had to be put down.

Daring food robbers target lions

Humans are stealing meat from lions, and the practice may be common and widespread in Africa, scientists reported in a study published last month.

(Photo and graphic courtesy of National Geographic)

A team of researchers in Cameroon discovered a lion-kill in the wild that was later butchered with knives and stripped of flesh, which prompted them to survey field reports on human kleptoparasitism, or food theft.

In the incident that triggered the suvey, observers first watched a pair of big cats gorging on the carcass of a native antelope in the Benoue national park, according to the study published in the African Journal of Ecology.

(yellow patch shows lion range)

The lions fled when the scientists approached in their vehicles to make an initial inspection of the scene. When the observers returned several hours later, instead of lions, people scattered from the scene and disappeared into the surrounding bushland.

The researchers found that the carcass had ben stripped, with cut marks making clear that knives were used.

"The only remains left were the head, the feet and a few remains from the skin," the report says, leaving the authors to speculate that the lions may have been chased off the meat by local villagers.

"Freshly cut leaves were found at the remains, suggesting they wrapped the meat in leaves for transport," it says.

Occurrences of kleptoparasitism amongst animals are well documented, including lions and hyaenas commonly filtching from each other, as well as both species stealing from cheatahs and African wild dogs.

However there is little on record about incidents of humans scavenging off top predators. But one Ugandan study in 1999 uncovered nine cases of human kleptoparasitism, from which the authors of the latest paper conclude that the phenomenon may be common in Africa.

They also cite anecdotal reports that suggest the practice may be wide-spread among several groups of people, from the nomadic Mbororo in North Cameroon to park staff on the Maswa game reserve in Tanzania.

Illegal diamond miners in the remote northern regions of the Central African Republic were reportedly scavenging from big cats, and elsewhere in the same country there is a village known to allow lions to live nearby, specifically for easy access to their prey.

While the literature on modern incidents is thin, studies of prehistoric human kleptoparasitism are more common, suggesting that our ancestors were frequent opportunistic robbers of carnivores, for vital additional protein.

The authors say that the subject merits more attention and that important lessons in conservation may be gained from it.

"It may be that humans receive benefits from their co-existence with lions and other large carnivores, possibly influencing their attitude and behaviour," it says.