Purebred Pigeon Sept/October 2025

6 – Purebred PIGEON Figurita Valenciana: A Personal View from Spain By Ángel Luis Rodríguez Barbero. Photos by Kele Fabián. Drawing by Carmen. The Figurita Valenciana – the most popular and widespread Spanish pigeon breed outside of Spain, (apart from the world of pouters), seems to be going through a period in which it is a prophet in its own land of origin. Whether due to the fluc- tuations of fashion or the harmful tendency of the Spanish character to value what is foreign before what is one’s own in an exercise of self-conscious provincialism. The truth is that, although she could be the queen of the pigeon hobby in Spain, she is only a discreet contender for the throne of a kingdom in crisis, literally just as it happens, a reality in her country. After the Figurita’s recovery from previous abandonment – thanks to the distinguished Pere Prats – and its dazzling international projection towards the rest of Europe in the In- ternational Aviculture Competition “Ciudad de Valls” during a prodigious decade from the hand of excellent Spanish breeders such as Ramón Amenós, José Domínguez, Ricardo Castellano and others, its initial success continued in countries such as Holland, Belgium and Germany, and from there it moved to the USA and Canada, even with the creation of several breed clubs in various countries. But in Spain, although other breeders such as Jordi Maño- sa, José Luis Sanz, Fernando Ferrer, Luis Sánchez, etc. took over, their is a tendency to abandon hobbies related to animals. Whether due to the change in the cultural paradigm of Span- ish society which is much more forcibly urban; the economic crisis that has been going on for too long; the animal rights offensive and its extinctionist desires disguised as a fight for animal rights, and above all by governments efforts that have been handled between the negligent and the directly aggressive against these hobbies with the excuse of the standards imposed by the European Union regarding animal health and welfare. Together they have caused this perfect storm to affect all breeds of pigeons and other animals. Today, from Spain, we see with a certain healthy envy how the passion for the Figurita grows and develops vigorously with excellent examples both in quantity and quality. We could say that many of the European and American fans of the Figurita work with the standard sheet in hand and implement new colors that enrich and increase the interest in the breed. While in Spain we have stagnated in both quality and quan- tity. We fear that if things continue this way, in the future we will have to import pigeons from those countries, if there are any fanciers left in Spain to do so. I regret my pessimism. As a breed internationally recognized by the Europe- an Entente (E.E) the breed standard protects the Figurita in Europe from the imaginative vagaries of some fanciers intent on introducing traits into the breed that are completely foreign to it, as in the case of the crest, or modifying concepts such as size, since the Figurine has grown larger the further north it has traveled, following the natural tendency of many species. Into the E.E. any modification to its standard can only come from the entity representing its country of origin. On the contrary, in Spain the opposite effects have been manifested in the excessive decrease in size that has led to ri- diculous situations such as a national champion pigeon with 10 tail feathers, due to the negligence of some judges. Other defects, in addition to the loss of tail feathers due to a decrease in size, have been hooked beaks, excessively long and curved at the tip (I call them “Concorde” like the famous plane), poorly positioned in relation to the forehead and even crooked, which is most likely due to excessive inbreeding. Giv- en the small number of quality specimens, this means that only a few quality families are persistently cultivated. I had problems with recessive defects that appeared in