It’s the season: Pigeon racing spreading its wings

From January to March every year, Bengaluru’s pigeon ‘fanciers’ have a packed schedule. It is the season for racing pigeons.

Racing pigeons was introduced as a hobby in 1818 in Belgium. It gained popularity in Bengaluru over 50 years ago, around the time the Karnataka Racing Pigeon Club (KRPC) was formed. Currently, Bengaluru has four such clubs and over 300 fanciers, a term used to refer to those who grow and train pigeons for racing.

The hobby sees fanciers releasing their homing pigeons at great distances from their homes. The pigeons are known to find their way back home. The bird that returns home the fastest, taking into account not just time, but also velocity, is judged the winner. The rest of the year is spent training and breeding them.

Five decades on

Suresh Yesudas is the president of the KRPC. He got into the hobby 22 years ago. The other clubs in the city are Racing Pigeon Club (RPC), Karnataka Racing Pigeon Association (KRPA) and Bangalore Racing Pigeon Society (BRPS). 

Jason Samuel, who has over 100 pigeons, belongs to BRPS. He has been involved in the hobby for close to 30 years. “I have been interested in birds since my school days, but got into it seriously in the late 90s,” says
Samuel.

At his home in Hennur, he lets his pigeons out daily. They fly around the house for 1-1.5 hours before returning to their cages. “This is how we exercise and train them. We observe how they fly and their speed, and from this, we pick the birds that will participate in the races,” Samuel explains. This is the standard practice followed by most fanciers.

Typically, male, female and younger pigeons are housed separately. They are fed a mix of corn, Bengal gram, green peas, wheat, jowar and other millets. “It’s an expensive hobby. Feeding them alone costs Rs 4,000-Rs 5,000 a month,” says Samuel.

Apart from the training, the combination of the grains they are fed makes a huge difference to their chances of winning the race. His birds have won multiple medals. The contests are not played for money. The birds win medals and certificates, he shares.

Animal cruelty?

The hobby is often criticised for promoting animal cruelty, but Shanker Vajravelu from the BRPS explains that this is not the case.

“We look after the birds like our children, give them the best food and always ensure they are comfortable,”
he states. He doesn’t see it as cruelty but as an ancient tradition. “They were used by royals to transport messages. And the birds were kept in pristine condition,” he says.

Their safety is of utmost concern to the fanciers. “We don’t fly them during the hawk breeding season. We don’t fly them near airports, near hilly areas or anywhere where there is a chance of them facing harm or predators,” says Samuel. Fanciers like him also ask for visits from the forest department to ascertain if the living conditions of their birds are ideal and for advice on appropriate changes that could be made.

How they race

The pigeons are transported in vehicles to distances that are 200 to 1,700 kilometres away, where they are released. They are accompanied by two referees and a driver. 

During racing season, the races start with shorter distances. Each race is two weeks apart. Vajravelu’s bird won the trophy in 2020 for flying back to his home in Horamavu Agara from New Delhi — a distance of 1,700 km. The race saw 26 birds vying for the title. 

Do pigeons get lost? Some do, but it’s very rare, Samuel says. Some have returned with scratches.

Stories of ‘spy’ pigeons flying into India from across the border and losing their way are not uncommon. Some have even been kept under police custody and have FIRs lodged against them.