Pigeon racing in Taiwan

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
21

To be fair, the illegal building thing is a bit hyperbolic because loads of construction is illegal. when people illegally build the metal top floors they pay a fine and get taxed a higher rate. it often isnt considered abnormal or even a problem.

Until it is a problem :upside_down_face: Lots of pigeon houses on ground level too, the rooftop thing is just a population density/lacked land thing. Many small ones can probably wiggle their way out of building laws as they arent all structural :slight_smile:

Also it isnt really illegal race gambling, just illegal gambling. exists all over Taiwan in other games as well. I think the pigeon racing itself is legal (dont quote me)

Some people call this the price of freedom haha

22

Depends when they were built. My inlaws have a 3 floor building that was originally 1 floor. They built it up themselves, it also has a roof structure. All legal because of the dates.

23

Pigeon’s houses are commonly as good or better than the real house.

1 Like
24

Fire in a pigeon loft that killed 38 racing pigeons.

The owner of the pigeons, Baoshan Township Mayor Chiu Chen-Wei (邱振瑋), said

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5134066

25

Money talks :sweat_smile:

26

A decent movie with pigeon racing as the theme.

1 Like
27

Wow that came out of nowhere I probably would never noticed that but I’m going to check it

28

Pigeon kidnapping ring busted

Used nets to catch and steal racing pigeons as they fly through training and racing routes along mountain ridges and riverbeds in Tainan, Chiayi and other places.

1 Like
29

“He and four other suspects were arrested on the spot by the police when they set up a net to capture racing pigeons in the Guanmiao Mountain area of ​​Tainan. They were arrested in a panic, and 500 racing pigeons that flew overhead escaped. .”

I wish I had seen that. I bet it looked hilarious. A bunch of old men panicking as coppers on motorcycles zoom in to arrest them followed by 500 pigeons bursting out of the cage for freedom whilst shitting on everyone.

30

Those pigeons sure are lucrative!

31

They are so beyond lucky it was the police that caught them.

32

I heard a lot of pigeon racers are gangster types… you really don’t want to mess with them.

33

Anybody have some nets laying around

34

Did you not hear?!

35

I think you’d have more worries from rival netters! Those are the real gangsters.

36

Reading the thread title, I thought “ohhh pigeon racing, that might be a fun little hobby to maybe take up”

Then it turns out you have the Taiwan version of rednecks capturing pigeons on a mass scale and it’s all gangsters involved for some reason (I assume gambling type reasons and it being a loophole in the law?)

1 Like
37

This sounds like something from an episode of Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.

38

Yep. Huge

39

Me too – I’d never heard of pigeon racing before, and my mental image was of pigeons running on their feet and bobbing their heads as they all waddle from a start line to a finish line on a miniature race track.

40

Ostrich racing used to be quite popular, but pigeons are a lot cheaper and way more common.