Abandoned by Humans, Forsaken by Nature: the Plight of Pigeons (2024)

I suppose their domestication is partly to blame for their infamous nest making skills, but its still a shame that they’ve been discarded considering previous use cases that were once popular like letter delivery

I used to see pigeons everywhere as a kid. Now they are very rare. I like these animals and many others, and I wish TFA went more into what can be done.

This is an Angloamerican thing - especially British - propagandizing and hating pigeons to the extent of calling them 'flying plague' and whatnot. Its not seen elsewhere in the world, even in the Mediterranean. You can still find major city squares full of pigeons as a policy, where people go to see the pigeons or feed them.

Used to hate pigeons in my 20s. Not like, vile hatred or anything like that, just.... man, what's up with these pigeons.

Now, I live at a place that has a tiny pigeon colony right outside my window. Every morning, a cute pigeon couple flies up to my window sill to watch me for a bit. Sometimes they're not there, presumably hanging out with other pigeons.

Their instinct's to fly away from me if I get close or adjust in my seat, but when we're all just chilling, their feathers floof up into a ball of what looks like comfortable warmth. They slowly blink their eyes like cats and their preening care for each other is always cute.

They are not graceful.

>But in doing so, we’ve stripped away the very traits they need to survive on their own

Interesting, I wonder if these explains why I do not see pigeons around the small city (~100,000) I live in. 40 years ago, you saw them everywhere, but in the mid to late 90s, hawks started showing up in the city.

Now, you hardly seen any pigeons.

This article does not do a very good job of talking about why pigeons were domesticated, and instead, rely upon argumentation by pathos. It only mentions racing in passing, but breeding pigeons for racing weakens the whole argument.

In the Middle East, pigeons were raised as a food source. There are structures that allow flocks to nest, and from time to time, people would cook some for food.

I have seen a video of someone doing so in London with one of the many free roaming pigeons.

There may be other relationships pigeons have with humans.

It’s still possible to redomesticate pigeons. There are some obstacles. If they are going to be harvested for food, then people need some way to make sure they are disease free, and on-site butchering is legal.

> Without the knowledge of how to forage or avoid predators, it is left to rely on scraps from human hands—often unhealthy, processed foods that weaken its body and leave it vulnerable to disease. While we might feed them out of kindness, their growing dependence only deepens their inability to adapt to the wild.

There are a lot of animals, both wild and domesticated, that are adapting to life in urban areas because food sources in other spaces have been decimated through aggressive building or farming. The city is the wild now.

Here they are abandon or kill (not fast) kill hunting dogs when they are 'too old'. Humans are great.