The Vietnamese Government has ordered an immediate halt to the culls of wild birds in Ho Chi Minh City, and the cities of Da Nang and Hue. City authorities had embarked on the culls, mostly targeted at feral pigeons, in an attempt to prevent the spread of avian flu from the countryside. Representatives of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization met the Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to discuss the culls. The Ministry had already explained that the cities were acting unilaterally, and that that the Vietnamese government had not authorised or recommended these culls (BirdLife 07-12-05).

The Australian Government's Regional Natural Heritage Programme has awarded AU$193,000 to a new project managed by BirdLife, which will identify conservation priorities and build partnerships for managing the first national park in Timor-Leste. BirdLife has been working with the Government of Timor-Leste for several years on a programme of biological surveys to identify the country's Important Bird Areas. BirdLife has now joined forces with the New South Wales (Australia) Department of Environment and Conservation, whose participation allows the programme to be widened towards establishment of a national protected areas network. The project will focus on the area of highest biodiversity value, the first of which will be in the Lore/Lake Iralalaro/Jaco Island region (BirdLife 06-12-2005).

Timor-Leste supports five threatened bird species, three of which are pigeons. It is one of only eight countries that support three or more threatened species of pigeon. The new national park will potentially protect populations of:

Wetar Ground-dove Gallicolumba hoedtii Endangered
Timor Imperial Pigeon Ducula cineracea Endangered
Timor Green Pigeon Treron psittaceus Endangered
Slaty Cuckoo-dove Turacoena modesta Near Threatened
Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon Ducula rosacea Near Threatened

Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City has begun poisoning pigeons and other wild birds to prevent avian flu from spreading to the crowded city. Huynh Huu Loi, Director of Ho Chi Minh City's Animal Health Department, said "We will make sure that no birds are left in the city to minimize the risk of bird flu". Loi said beside the poisoning campaign, authorities would also move pet birds outside the city until Vietnam is free of bird flu. Some international experts have said that pigeons appear to be resistant to the deadly H5N1 virus. [Reuters 25-11-2005].

See also BirdLife International (30-11-2005): Vietnam culls "a distraction" from priority bird flu measures.

The Indonesian Agriculture Ministry recently discovered a domestically bred pigeon in the city of Bekasi, to be infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said on 1-11-2005 that Indonesia will soon form a joint surveillance team for wild birds. He said "there is suspicion toward wild and pet birds such as pigeons as carriers of the avian influenza" and that "migratory routes of wild birds will be investigated, as well as domestically bred pigeons". The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization hopes to send teams to Indonesia to conduct house-to-house searches to define bird-flu-affected areas. (Reuters 1-11-2005).

Keeping animals as pets is very popular in Indonesia, especially birds, with Indonesia by far the largest producer and consumer in the Southeast Asian bird trade. Pigeons are very popular cage birds and are both bred domestically and trapped in the wild. For further information see:

Nash, S.V. (1993) Sold for a Song – The Trade in Southeast Asian Non-CITES Birds. TRAFFIC, Cambridge.

Shepherd, C.R., Sukumaran, J. & Wich, S.A. (2004) Open Season: An analysis of the pet trade in Medan, Sumatra 1997–2001. TRAFFIC, Cambridge.

Jepson, P. & Ladle, R.J. (2005) Bird-keeping in Indonesia: conservation impacts and the potential for substitution-based conservation responses. Oryx.

There is fear that wild pigeons are infected with, and spreading, avian flu. Recent concerns that ~20 dead pigeons found recently in southern Hungary died from avian flu were later found to have been poisoned by pesticides used on sunflower seeds according to the National Animal Health Institute (Reuters 26-10-2005). A dead pigeon in a schoolyard triggered avian flu fears in Dubai on the 24-10-2005, however, the bird was not found to be infected with avian flu when tested by the Dubai Municipality Department of Veterinary Services (Gulfnews 25-10-2005). In the Moscow region of Russia, a poultry farmer has been spreading poisoned seeds to kill wild pigeons with the intention of protecting his birds from avian flu (The Moscow Times 24-10-2005). If such a practice were to spread then this may have considerable impacts on wild populations of pigeons and other granivorous animals.