Pigeon Dignity, Human Potential, and the Power of Rage Club
Have you ever seen a pigeon in the city? What do they eat?
After more than three and a half decades of living in and around cities, I have observed that the diet of city pigeons consists almost entirely of food scraps from human beings. I have seen pigeons pecking at used diapers, feeding on yesterday’s bread, eating rotten produce, and fighting one another over all of these items. I have yet to see a city pigeon eating worms, bugs, berries, or in some other way living off natural, unprocessed bounty.
I am going to state an opinion about these birds: They have no dignity. Beyond their parasitic status in urban settings, they are an invasive species and well known disease vector whose contribution to the places they occupy is mostly just excrement. Sometimes, they are referred to as ‘flying rats.’ It’s not hard to see why.
The ‘city pigeon’ (aka, ‘feral pigeon’) was not always a scavenger. For nearly 3,500 years, these birds were prized for their uncanny ability to navigate ‘home’ across great distances. Also known as homing or carrier pigeons, they were domesticated and trained as precursors to modern postal services. They were used in cultures as diverse as Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, and more recently, Auckland, New Zealand. They delivered daily post in peacetime, top-secret post in…
