Racing pigeons: Coo, how much? BROTHER NEW ZOT, Dutch-born, dark, yellow-eyed and only nine months old, set off in the morning of October 24th from Qixian, with nearly 4,000 others, in search of his home loft 500km away. He was flying in one part of the Iron Eagle triple crown race, China's biggest racing-pigeon contest. His owner Jacob Poortvliet, a Dutch pigeon-fancier, paid €6,000 ($7,800) to enter 20 birds, though as we went to press he had yet to win one of the 250 prizes and a share in the 3.2m yuan ($500,000) prize pot. Foreign owners are rare, but foreign birds are not. Up to half the birds in the race were Belgian-bred, reflecting both Chinese owners" love of high-flying foreign birds and the stakes on offer. Thomas Gyselbrecht of Pigeon Paradise (PiPa), a Belgium-based auction house, says that of the 11 pigeons worth over €100,000 it has sold, nine went to Chinese buyers, five in the past year. In all, Belgium sold 8,000 pigeons to China last year: three-quarters of the country's pigeon exports by value. Trade the other way is nil: worries about avian flu mean the EU bans pigeon imports from China. Centuries of breeding and expertise make Belgian pigeons the best in the world. They comprise three-quarters of the European Union's pigeon exports. But the Chinese are crazier about pigeons than Belgians, says Lars Vercammen, a pigeon fancier. The rich have marble and gold lofts, he says, while the poor keep pigeons in their kitchens and bathrooms. The Chinese Racing Pigeon Association boasts over 300,000 members and doles out 8m leg-rings every year. The Chinese interest is good news for Mr Gyselbrecht's firm and its 25 employees. He expects €20m of business in the coming auction season. But the boom irks modest buyers. Birds that cost €500 five years ago now sell for €3,000, says Pieter Oberholster, a broker in Britain. "Whoever bought them are just idiots," says Zheng Yijie, a racing-pigeon enthusiast in Beijing. They don't understand. Traders, not pigeon fanciers, are to blame, he reckons. Mr Gyselbrecht sees three kinds of customer: racers, profit-seekers and those looking for "status symbols." The last, mostly Chinese, are inflating prices. His costliest pigeon sold for €250,000 in January and he expects prices to hit €500,000 in due course. There's no limit when you're a billionaire.