How pigeons took over the world - Elizabeth Carlen and Joanna Moles
It’s the morning of June 12th, 1944
and a pigeon named Paddy is making
an epic 368 kilometer journey.
He manages to dodge Nazi falcons
then beats on through stormy weather,
flying an average of 79 kilometers
per hour for almost five hours straight.
Paddy’s carrying the first news
of the D-Day invasion back to England.
He wins a medal for gallantry
for this accomplishment.
Paddy was one of around 250,000 pigeons
used by the British during World War II
to speedily transport secret messages.
In fact, pigeon delivery systems
are ancient human practices.
Seeing their meat as a protein source
and their nitrogen-rich poop
as the perfect fertilizer,
humans brought pigeons into captivity
as far back as 10,000 years ago.
We then tapped into other traits.
Pigeons are naturally speedy
and possess a powerful homing instinct
that drives them to navigate
long distances
back to the location they consider “home.”
So we began developing pigeon posts
and breeding and training them for racing.
In a hobby called
“pigeon fancying,”
people selected for traits
like head plumage
and fabulously feathered feet.
As we carried pigeons around the world,
they escaped or were released,
forming the wild urban flocks
we're familiar with today.
Pigeons are now one of the most abundant,
widespread species on the planet,
managing to thrive in chaotic cities.
They owe their success to an ideal
combination of traits,
including some that were
accentuated by humans.
Unlike birds that nest
on the ground or in trees,
pigeons were originally cliff-dwellers.
City buildings mimic
their natural habitat.
And pigeons set a notoriously
low bar when it comes to homemaking.
Add some sticks to any window ledge
or highway overpass
and it's a great spot to raise babies.
This unfussiness allows them to live
in environments
where more specialized species can’t.
As generalists, pigeons take advantage
of urban food waste.
With an organ in their throats
called a crop,
they can gorge themselves when food is
available and store some for later.
They provide “crop milk” to their young
instead of having to fetch them live food.
Chicks grow quickly with this
fat and protein-rich meal.
If conditions are right,
pigeons breed year-round
and produce new offspring every six weeks.
They actually have higher breeding rates
in cities
because of the abundance
of food and shelter.
These booming populations
attract predators.
New York City is home
to a million pigeons,
which support large populations
of raptors.
But pigeons’ aptitude for swift flight,
further exploited by being bred
for racing,
means they’re made
for high speed chases.
Compared to barn owls,
which are a similar size,
pigeon wing bones are thicker
and more curved,
providing extra space for muscle mass.
They can reach speeds
of 125 kilometers per hour.
And their large flocks ensure safety
in numbers and more eyes on the lookout.
While pigeons play a starring role
in urban wildlife,
we’re not always enthusiastic neighbors.
In 1966, New York’s parks commissioner
coined the term “rats with wings”
and it stuck.
Indeed, their poop,
which we originally cherished
as fertilizer, presents a unique problem.
Just one pigeon can leave behind
11 kilograms of acidic excrement per year,
which, in the United States,
scales to about $1.1 billion
in structural damage annually.
Though incidents of infection are rare,
this poop can host fungi
that are harmful to people if inhaled.
They may be numerous, noisy
and a little too keen on your lunch,
but the pigeons that swirl around us
are evidence of an ancient,
ongoing relationship.
Their rise to world domination has been
a collaborative effort.
For better or for worse,
we did this to ourselves.
