Abu Mahdi al-Aboudi recently paid over $11,000 for a single pigeon at a high-profile auction in Iraq’s southern port city of Basra. “It is not even the most expensive pigeon I own,” Aboudi, who has bred racing pigeons in Basra for a decade, told Al-Monitor. He proudly added that his new acquisition came from the Janssen Bros of Belgium, who have bred renowned racing pigeons for more than a century.

Aboudi was one of the many pigeon fanciers who participated in the international mid-March auction orchestrated by Pigeon Paradise, or PIPA, which organizes online sales and auctions of pigeons. Hundreds of pigeon breeders and enthusiasts from different provinces of Iraq participated in the auction, in which dozens of birds imported from Europe fetched six-digit prices.

Aboudi has a stock of nearly 400 pigeons, most of them from major breeds, characterized by their ability to return home after having traveled hundreds of kilometers, which makes them ideal for races. His most expensive pigeon is worth 13,000 euros ($14,620).

Aboudi said that he negotiates with PIPA CEO Nikolaas Gyselbrecht on the prices of pigeons from Belgium and elsewhere in Europe, and often manages to considerably lower some of the prices. “The price of a Bros baby in Belgium is $3,900 per squab, but I managed to lower the cost for Iraqi pigeon fanciers through the mating between the birds I own, bringing down the price of the squab to about $2,000, which is considered a win for pigeon fanciers,” he told Al-Monitor.