Jarosław Sellin announced the decision at a news conference in the northern city of Gdańsk on Wednesday.
Sellin said: “I am delighted to announce that ... the culture minister has approved the decision to put the ‘traditional breeding and flights of mail pigeons’ in the National List of Intangible National Heritage.”
After the news conference, local breeders released some 100 pigeons into the air to mark the occasion, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The deputy culture minister described homing pigeons as “fascinating birds” and added that "Polish mail pigeons are world class.”
He told reporters that pigeon mail had been used in Poland as far back as the 16th century in the southeastern city of Zamość.
Today there are around 80,000 homing pigeon breeders in Poland, the PAP news agency reported.
Pigeon flights feature at major state, religious, social and patriotic events, such as the commemoration of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw and of the 1939 defence of Poland’s Westerplatte peninsula against the German invasion, Sellin told the news conference.
Poland’s National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage contains 93 items, including 10 “practices.”
Five of these items have also been put on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Dziennik Bałtycki