CALCUTTA, 6 February 2005 — The Orissa government is closing down a unique pigeon mail service started in the 13th century citing a cash crunch. The pigeon post got through even when cyclones and floods put telephones out of order in the coastal province. But the tidy messaging system is being wound up and packed off to posterity. The police force, which ran the unique pigeon post, resisted for two years a finance department directive to wind it up on the grounds that it is not cost-effective. At present, there are nearly 1400 pigeons ferrying messages. All of them are being retired. The pigeons were in the news last year when a mysterious disease killed many of them. The Belgian bred homing pigeons fly between 29 centers in Orissa’s hilly areas and forests. The birds brave hawks and inclement weather to deliver messages inserted in plastic capsules tied to their legs. There are two types of services — one-way and boomerang. The first is provided by birds not trained to return to the point they started from. Boomerang is a two-way service within a radius of 200 km. The pigeons usually fly 100km but they can, if necessary, travel up to 500 km provided they break the journey at “hopping stations”, where they have a meal and a rest. “They can travel at high speeds, they are reliable and, unlike the wireless system, they offer total secrecy”, said B.B. Mishra, Orissa’s Director-General of police. The powerfully-built homers are trained when they are one-year-old at service headquarters in Cuttack. They live for up to 20 years, retiring after 10. To preserve their memory for future generations, the government is making a documentary about them. After that, they will be released into the wild.
