Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Pigeons as possible pets? There’s proof they have character
Jbjsaturday
WASHINGTON: Every week, 10year-old Molly Fox loads her four pet pigeons into a carrier and takes them for a walk around her San Francisco neighbourhood.
There’s Guru, the shy one; Ajax, sweet and addicted to safflower seeds; and Johnson, who’s aggressive. The fourth, Pax, used to be calm, according to Molly, but Johnson has brought out his combative side.
“He does wing- fu, which is when they slap their wings at you,” said Molly, whose allergies prevent her from having a more traditional pet. “But we’ve gotten used to it.”
Molly’s pigeons came from the Palomacy, the country’s dedicated pigeon adoption group.
It’s a volunteer organisation that for nine years has been finding homes for rescued pigeons – and trying to improve the reputation of birds often maligned as “rats with wings.”
San Francisco resident Elizabeth Young launched the group after noticing that the animal shelter where she volunteered took in a surprising number of pigeons.
They tried to find homes for cats and dogs, Young recalled, but it didn’t even bother with the birds – they were simply euthanased. Young said she fell in love with one gentle pigeon she named Gurumina and found a home for her. Then there was another, and more after that, and Palomacy was born. The organisation, funded by donations and grants, has since rescued more than 700 birds, and it has become Young’s full-time job.
Palomacy is is a new chapter in a human- pi g e o n relationship that goes back thousands of years.
As Andrew D Blechman explains in his book Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird, the rock pigeon is the world’s oldest domesticated bird. The birds made appearances in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and over time they’ve been valued for their poo (excellent fertiliser) and their service in the army (32 pigeons received medals after World War II for delivering crucial messages). But people still use pigeons – for racing, and for mimicking their cousins in “dove releases.” All those activities have created domestic breeds unable to survive in the wild. But Palomacy believes rescued pigeons make an ideal pet. Got allergies? Get a pigeon. Got a tight budget? Pigeons are vegan, so their diets are cheap. They’re also clean, quiet and relaxed. “I call pigeons masters of leisure They like to nap, they like to lay in the sun, they like to bathe,” she explained. “They flirt, they snuggle. They’re total romantics.” Studies have also found that they’re smart enough to sort of count. Pigeons have such great eyesight that they’ve been trained to successful find sailors and equipment lost at sea. “They are very intelligent. They can recognise themselves in mirrors,” said Molly, who lets her pigeons fly around the house. “Johnson’s the vainest pigeon. We always see him looking at himself in mirrors.” – Washington Post