By Cam Lucadou-Wells and Casey Neill
CASEY council will investigate whether to fund a pergola-like shelter to help protect birds at Doveton’s pigeon club.
At a 16 August meeting councillor Wayne Smith requested a council report into the cost of the proposal at Dandenong Racing Pigeon Club at Power Reserve.
The club requires an outdoor cover to safely load pigeons from the clubhouse into transportation without them being buffeted by wind and rain.
Cr Smith said trucks couldn’t park close enough to the building to protect the birds from the elements.
“It’s not good for the birds or the people.”
As earlier reported by Star News, Cr Smith recently visited the club – which he later described as the “world’s best secret” and a “hive of activity”.
He told the council that the club had a “fantastic facility that the council has hardly contributed to apart from the land”.
The 47-year-old club has 32 committed members.
One of them is stalwart Joe Phillips who donated a truck and bird baskets worth about $300,000 to give back to the sport he’s enjoyed for 52 years.
The truck is used to carry 1000-plus birds off to races in which they fly hundreds of kilometres to return miraculously and unerringly home – unless addled by bad electrical storms.
The council is expected to receive the report by mid-September.
