Pigeon sold at Kuwaiti auction for £58,000

A pigeon has sold at auction in Kuwait for KD23,000 (£58,000) leading to criticism on social media at the extortionate price for the bird. A viral video of the auction, where the crowd grew enthusiastic with the rising price, became widely shared.

According to Gulf News, the pigeon is a kind known locally as "gallabi" – a roller pigeon selected for their ability to roll in the air.

Posted by a local news site, the clip shows an auctioneer saying 23,000 (in Arabic) numerous times as the audience shuffles excitedly before the bidding ends to murmurs from the crowd.

A number of comments criticised the amount of money spent on the bird. One comment, translated by Gulf News, said "Such a figure would make sense only if the pigeon had gold wings."

Another said that the winning bidder had "a brain as small as a pigeon... He should have offered the money to the poor and the needy who would put it to a good use and help themselves, instead of wasting them on a bird."

Another user said that they could not believe people would spend that amount of money on a pigeon while people struggled to feed themselves: "I can see that the circus about paying shocking prices for beauty camels is now moving on to pigeons."

In 2014, an unidentified man in China spent £1.2m on a dog at a luxury pet fair. The golden Tibetan Mastiff is thought to be the most expensive dog in the world.