Cher Ami wasn’t the only heroic pigeon. In World War I, pigeons employed by British and American forces completed more than 10,000 flights. During the Second World War, British citizens donated 200,000 birds to the National Pigeon Service. Nearly three dozen were later awarded
the Dickin Medal for service to their country.
Their innate ability to find their way back to their nest — also called a “homing” instinct — even from great distances made them useful in wartime. It’s believed that a sense called magnetoreception allows pigeons to navigate using the planet’s magnetic field. But while scientists are still working to understand
how homing works, the
why is part of what makes pigeons so endearing. They mate for life, and as partners they’re affectionate, attentive and — most importantly — deeply loyal. They will fly for hundreds of miles, over continents and oceans and through rain and darkness, artillery and bullets, just to get home to their mate.
In the postwar period, pigeons became much less important. The rise of factory farming saw squab (the culinary term for an immature pigeon) replaced by chickens, which are simpler to raise in large numbers. Rapid advances in communication made pigeons obsolete as messengers. Even their guano was no longer necessary.
“We learned to manufacture synthetic fertilizer from bomb making,” Jerolmack says.
Once pigeons’ utility waned, so did humans’ affinity for them. In the 1950s, New York City experienced an outbreak of psittacosis, a disease that spreads from birds to people.
“It seems that the person who led the Department of Health didn’t like pigeons, and publicly went on a campaign saying people were getting psittacosis from them,” Jerolmack says. “It turned out people were most likely getting it from pet parrots. But that starts the idea that pigeons are vectors of disease.”
Many cities tried to reduce their numbers. In 1978, for instance, the D.C. Bureau of Community Hygiene proposed a
$20,000 program to feed birth-control-laced grain to pigeons. Other solutions were more lethal: In February of 1964, officials in Boston
poisoned 10,000 pigeons in just three days. Deterrents like bird spikes became commonplace on buildings, and chemical sprays like “Roost-No-More” hit the market.
Pigeons have lived in cities as long as there have been cities, Jerolmack says, and they may be the closest thing to a native species most urban environments have. The rock doves they’re descended from build nests on rocky cliff faces. Modern pigeons find a great substitute in urban architecture.
“Unlike other city-dwelling animals, which might prefer to live, eat, nest and mate on grass or in trees, pigeons prefer to do all those things on cornices, air conditioners and sidewalks,” Jerolmack says.
Unfortunately, that’s part of what can make them seem like a pest. “Pigeons live their whole lives in our faces and in the places that we’ve designated are only for people,” he says. “They walk on our sidewalks. They sit on our benches and then poop on them. They love to lay eggs on our fire escapes. This makes them seem almost like trespassers.”
A new perspective on pigeons
Barring the collapse of modern communications networks, we won’t ever need pigeons the same way we once did, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate them again, Mosco says.
“They had a pretty incredible career, and then we just sort of started hating them pretty recently,” she says. “So it shouldn't be that hard to switch back to liking them, right?”
The pigeon’s image has been bolstered a bit in recent weeks. The London Museum
unveiled a new logo with a white pigeon standing over a splat of glittery guano, and New York City’s High Line
installed a giant pigeon sculpture by Colombian-French artist Iván Argote.
A shifting public opinion
In the postwar period, pigeons became much less important. The rise of factory farming saw squab (the culinary term for an immature pigeon) replaced by chickens, which are simpler to raise in large numbers. Rapid advances in communication made pigeons obsolete as messengers. Even their guano was no longer necessary.
“We learned to manufacture synthetic fertilizer from bomb making,” Jerolmack says.
Once pigeons’ utility waned, so did humans’ affinity for them. In the 1950s, New York City experienced an outbreak of psittacosis, a disease that spreads from birds to people.
“It seems that the person who led the Department of Health didn’t like pigeons, and publicly went on a campaign saying people were getting psittacosis from them,” Jerolmack says. “It turned out people were most likely getting it from pet parrots. But that starts the idea that pigeons are vectors of disease.”
Many cities tried to reduce their numbers. In 1978, for instance, the D.C. Bureau of Community Hygiene proposed a
$20,000 program to feed birth-control-laced grain to pigeons. Other solutions were more lethal: In February of 1964, officials in Boston
poisoned 10,000 pigeons in just three days. Deterrents like bird spikes became commonplace on buildings, and chemical sprays like “Roost-No-More” hit the market.
Pigeons have lived in cities as long as there have been cities, Jerolmack says, and they may be the closest thing to a native species most urban environments have. The rock doves they’re descended from build nests on rocky cliff faces. Modern pigeons find a great substitute in urban architecture.
“Unlike other city-dwelling animals, which might prefer to live, eat, nest and mate on grass or in trees, pigeons prefer to do all those things on cornices, air conditioners and sidewalks,” Jerolmack says.
Unfortunately, that’s part of what can make them seem like a pest. “Pigeons live their whole lives in our faces and in the places that we’ve designated are only for people,” he says. “They walk on our sidewalks. They sit on our benches and then poop on them. They love to lay eggs on our fire escapes. This makes them seem almost like trespassers.”
“I feel like step one is changing people’s attitudes,” Mosco says. “You can donate to the groups that adopt them. And if you’re considering a pet, it doesn’t hurt to consider a pigeon, because the shelters are just full of them.”
Anna Morris, the director of wildlife ambassador programs at the
Vermont Institute of Natural Science, keeps six rescue pigeons in her backyard. If you’re thinking of adopting, it’s important to know “they can live for 18 or 20 years,” she says, “so you have to be in it for the long haul.”
But taking care of the birds, she says, offers a chance to see their “huge personalities and relationship dynamics.” Two mated pairs have formed in her small flock. “They are so tender with one another,” she says. “They absentmindedly reach over to run the other’s feathers through their beak. They will just kind of check in and cozy up, and it’s the sweetest thing.”
People who live alongside pigeons without really paying them much mind, Morris says, are “missing out on a great opportunity to be observant of their behavior and to get to know them.”
Their intelligence extends beyond their navigational ability. “They’re very good at pattern recognition,” Jerolmack says. Researchers have successfully trained pigeons to
differentiate between cubist and impressionistic paintings, as well as perform other tasks, including acting as pharmaceutical
quality control inspectors for pill manufacturing.
While they may no longer be an important food source for Americans, they do support city-dwelling species further up the food chain, such as Cooper’s hawks and peregrine falcons. In many ways, Jerolmack adds, they’re a model for what it means to thrive in an urban ecosystem. “Because of climate change and urbanization, we’re in this moment where animals are going to have to adapt to living with and around people, and vice versa,” he says. “To me, pigeons are on the leading edge of that.”
Kate Morgan is a freelance writer in Richland, Pennsylvania.
