This “About Pigeons” section has been kindly written for us by Guy Merchant of the Pigeon Control
Advisory Service www.picas.org.
Guy is widely regarded as one of the worlds leading
authorities on pigeon deterrents.
If you have a pigeon control question click here & we we'll answer you within 2 hours (Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm) Test
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The story of the Pigeon:
The
feral pigeon (often mis-spelt pidgeon)
that we see in our towns and cities today descends
from the Rock Dove (Columbia Livia), a cliff
dwelling bird that was widely found in coastal
areas many centuries ago, particularly rocky
coastlines. Unlike the Wood Pigeon (no relation)
that nests in trees, the feral pigeon will almost
exclusively nest on buildings and at height,
which is why the species has adapted so well
to modern towns and cities. Apart from man, the
main predator of the feral pigeon has historically
been the Peregrine Falcon, a bird that also lived
and bred along rocky coastlines. Due to the inaccessibility
of nesting sites on cliff faces, man was far
less of a threat than were avian predators. As
a result, the feral pigeon became incredibly
successful as a species. Until approximately
1000 years ago it would have been a common sight
in coastal areas – large flocks of several
thousand birds would have not been uncommon.
It is now rare to see pigeons living and breeding
on cliff faces other than in isolated areas.
Over the last 1000 years, as man has developed
and built towns and cities, the feral pigeon
has moved inland to exploit our buildings (that
replicate cliff faces) for the purpose of roosting
and breeding. The feral pigeon has also learned
to exploit man for food and has adapted, over
the centuries, to feed almost exclusively on
human food. Although the commonly held view
is that man domesticated the feral pigeon, in
reality it is far more likely that the pigeon
domesticated itself in order to exploit man.
The feral pigeon is now found in every part
of the world other than the two polar icecaps
and this fact alone demonstrates, quite clearly,
how adaptable the species has become and how
it rightly deserves its place as one of the most
successful species on the planet. The pigeon
has interacted with man for thousands of years
and the first recorded mention of pigeons in
human history was by the ancient Egyptians in
the form of hieroglyphics. The feral pigeon is
also mentioned in both the old and new testaments
and clay images, dating back to 3000 BC, have
been found in both Crete and Iran. The feral
pigeon was revered by both the ancient Hindus
and Moslems and in fact still is today – members
of these religious groups have become some of
the most prolific pigeon feeders we see in our
towns and cities today.
The pigeon is probably
best known for its ability to return to its nest
from considerable distances and the earliest
historical mention of man’s
use of the bird for this purpose is in 532 BC
by a Greek poet. Thereafter, during Roman times,
the bird was widely used as a messenger, to spread
the results of the Olympic Games for example
and two millennia later, in England, before the
days of telegraphs, away supporters at football
matches would release pigeons to fly back home
to carry news of the score as the game progressed.
The earliest large scale network of communication
using pigeons was established in Syria and Persia
about 5 Century BC and much later, in 12 Century
AD, the city of Baghdad and all the main towns
and cities in Syria and Egypt were linked by
messages carried by pigeons – this was
the sole source of communication.
In modern times
the feral pigeon has been used to great effect
during wartime and in both the first and second
World Wars the pigeon saved hundreds of thousands
of human lives by carrying messages across
enemy lines. Pigeons were carried on ships in
convoys and in the event of a U-boat attack a
messenger pigeon was released with details of
the location of the sinking ship and this quite
often lead to the survivors being rescued. There
were also mobile pigeon lofts set up behind the
trenches in the First World War and pigeons often
had to fly through enemy fire and poison gas
to get their messages home. The birds played
a vital role in intelligence gathering and were
used extensively behind enemy lines where the
survival rate was only 10%. In the Second World
War pigeons were used less due to advances in
telecommunications but they relayed invaluable
information back to the allies about the German
V1 and 2 Rocket sites on the other side of the
Channel.
Pigeons have lived alongside man for thousands
of years and in the main have been accommodated
due to their usefulness either as a food source
or as a messenger or even as a war hero. Now,
at the beginning of the 21st Century they appear
to have outlived their usefulness - we simply
don’t need them any more other than for
human sports such as pigeon racing and pigeon
shooting. Pigeons have gone from hero to zero
in the last 60 years and the species is now commonly
listed and treated as a pest species worldwide.
Due to their origins as a cliff dwelling bird,
and due to their close association with man, the
pigeon is at home nesting and breeding in our
towns and cities on ledges and roofs of buildings.
Although a vast majority of the general public
enjoys having pigeons around, they are not popular
with many property owners due to the fact that
roosting pigeons soil buildings with their excrement.
As a result, pigeons are slaughtered in vast numbers
by pest control companies the world over. Due
to the ineffectiveness of lethal controls such
as shooting, poisoning and trapping, and the fact
that pigeons are highly intelligent and resourceful,
we still see large numbers present in most towns
and cities today.
