It's time to appreciate pigeons!

To too many people, pigeons are nothing more than a nuisance; to others, they are recognised as one of the few examples of wildlife hardy enough to survive in our cities!

But why do pigeons live in cities?

Pigeons are also known as Rock Doves. The ones who live in cities around the world today are descendants of the birds we’ve brought there over the millennia for our purposes–as food, for hunting, as messengers, for racing, etcetera.

We abandoned them to the wild when they were no longer useful to us, but they have survived because they are hardy, adaptable and very intelligent. Pigeons are actually remarkably so; they can be taught to distinguish between impressionist and cubist art and even appear to pass the ‘mirror test’, joining a very select number of animals–humans, primates, dolphins, and elephants–in their ability for self-recognition. They are on par with primates in their ability to count. They can even recognise words: in one study, pigeons were taught between 28 and 58 different words and were able to distinguish them from 7,832 meaningless letter combinations. What’s even more startling is the fact that they were able to discriminate completely new words they had never seen during their training!

(Pigeons come in a fascinating variety of colours and patterns as a result of our breeding practices.)  

So we brought pigeons here, but why do they stay? Well, it’s because this is the perfect environment for them. Pigeons do particularly well in our cities because their original homes were sea cliffs and rocky ledges across Europe and Asia. This is where their wild counterparts still live today. To a pigeon, a city is not all that different to their ancestral home; there are plenty of perfect ledges, crevices and safe, dry roosting spots. Best of all, there is a constant supply of food from the rubbish we leave about on the streets.

But I’ve heard pigeons carry disease!

Contrary to what pest control companies have insisted over the last 60 years or so, pigeons are not major carriers of disease. (We began domesticating pigeons between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, and they were beloved animals until fairly recently!) In fact, unlike many wild birds, they appear not only to be extremely resistant to bird flu, and incapable of spreading it. The average person is actually more likely to get an illness from a pet bird than a pigeon! Many studies have demonstrated that there is very little risk from pigeons, even for people who work in occupations that bring them into close contact with the birds. (Here’s just one study, carried out over a 60 year period.)

(Little survivors!)

Spreading the idea that pigeons are particularly diseased and dangerous animals, however, means big money for pest control, and their propensity to breed quickly has made them the perfect target. Provided there is enough food, these birds can breed several times a year. Additionally, a third of any given flock is made up of visiting pigeons from nearby areas, scoping out new opportunities. When a pest control company comes in and shoots or poisons large numbers of them, any remaining birds take advantage of the fact that there is suddenly more food per bird. They begin to breed as quickly as possible, and any visitors settle down and bring others with them. This means that killing pigeons results in the opposite of what the pest control business claims to achieve: the number of pigeons doesn’t shrink at all. Instead, it grows–and that’s a very profitable cycle for business. It’s not only cruel but counterproductive…and that’s how pest control companies like it.

How do I humanely deal with pigeons if I don’t want them hanging around?

Not everybody will tolerate these intelligent, adaptable birds on their property, though, and this, in and of itself, is not a problem. It is relatively easy for most locations to convince pigeons that they aren’t welcome. Cleaning up our rubbish is an important tactic. Educating people about the problems with feeding large amounts of seed to pigeons is also helpful. This is certainly a very enjoyable pastime, but not always the best one for the birds. This does not mean that feeding bans are a solution, however: in 2000, for example, London banned feeding pigeons at Trafalgar Square--a famous and popular spot for the activity for 160 years--and an estimated 2,000 birds starved to death. 

An excellent organisation that can provide assistance is Humane Wildlife Solutions. The HWS, which is in Scotland, is award-winning for its effectiveness and will do remote consultation. And if you’re interested in learning more about how several different cities have used other non-lethal techniques, such as well as dedicated nestboxes and designated feeding areas, to humanely deal with pigeon numbers, you can check out the the Pigeon Control Advisory Service.

A few more fun facts about pigeons:

• Unlike many birds, pigeons mate for life and stay together year round. If you notice a pigeon bobbing down the street or flying through the sky, keep an eye out: you’re very likely to see their mate nearby.
• Pigeons are powerful fliers, and can travel 44 mph (70 km/hr)–up to 600 miles in one day.
• As mentioned before, pigeons are also known as Rock Doves. They are members of the dove family (Columbidae). Most languages only have one word for pigeons and doves, but English tends to use ‘dove’ for smaller, slimmer species and ‘pigeon’ for the larger ones.
• Charles Darwin loved pigeons and studied them extensively to prove his theory of evolution–though it was the Galapagos Finches who became famous, pigeons actually played a far larger role in his scientific studies.
• There are 10,000 species of birds, but only pigeons and doves feed their babies ‘milk’, otherwise known as ‘crop milk’. (Flamingos and male Emperor penguins feed their young with a similar, but different substance.) This is a secretion from the lining of the bird’s crop, a pouch in their throat where food is stored prior to digestion; it is regurgitated by parents for a week or two as the babies are weaned onto solid food. The production of crop milk is triggered by prolactin, the same hormone which triggers lactation in mammals.
• We have known for centuries about the brilliant navigation abilities of pigeons and their capacity for finding their way home from hundreds of miles away, but even now we aren’t entirely sure how they do it. The leading theories are that they are following the magnetic fields of the earth, using the position of the sun and the sky or listening to infrasound—low frequency audio coming from a number of sources—like the ocean.

So I say it’s time to appreciate pigeons for the fascinating animals that they are! They might not be rare, but scarcity is not necessarily an indicator of value–and pigeons are a great example of why!