City Pigeons - The Distasteful Symbol of Love

“Urban Mess”, is what these historically domesticated birds are now referred to as by modern city dwellers. Pigeons, one of the highly intelligent creatures known, revered for communication and companionship for thousands of years until a couple of decades ago, have now been reduced to mere nuisance in the cities. And that, for an absurdly unreasonable reason - their poop.  

Any living being is bound to produce waste as it ingests, digests and eliminates the residue. And pigeons are no different. Even plants shed dead leaves all through the day. While none of us mind handling our dog's poop or cleaning the bums of our babies, whom we adore and care for unconditionally, when it comes to pigeons’ poop, an unnecessary fear-infused stigma has developed over the past few years. 

It is true that pigeon’s poop or any bird’s poop may carry pathogens. But the same remains a fact for any other creature's poop as well, including dogs and humans. While a dog's biodegradable poop is wrapped in non-biodegradable plastic and tossed in the garbage bin to fill the land to never decompose, wild pigeons' droppings usually fall on the soil in the parks where they perch, and where their poop decomposes naturally alongside enriching the soil with their nitrogen rich excreta. Their poop on concrete pavements and platforms never reach the point of a piled-up mountain which can be considered a hazard for humans, thanks to regular cleaning of public places carried out by city maintenance crews. Even when passing by a patch of pigeon-poop-laden concrete in an open space is low risk for one to fall sick, unless one ventures into being too adventurous to handle that poop with bare hands and not care to wash their hands after.  

The only place pigeon poop is an actual hazard for humans is inside old abandoned sealed buildings, wherein heaps of poop of the indwelling pigeons dry up and aerosolize in the absence of ventilation. Even that heap becomes a real hazard only when disturbed, and the powdered, dry poop diffuses in the air and is inhaled.  

And so, by choosing not to connect with pigeons by keeping distance and not feeding them in the park fearing their poop, while additionally, guarding your fence tops with spikes to discourage perching around the house, is only keeping you distant from the love of these exceptionally intelligent and peaceful birds carrying divine calm and patience in their spirit, all the while, unintentionally injuring their gentle yet hard-working feet. These injuries often lead to infections and early deaths in many pigeons, while painful recovery in others following natural amputation of the affected toe or toes. 

Pigeons are one of humans’ earliest ventures into animal husbandry - reared not only for food, but also kept as pets, used in sports (racing) and for ceremonial purposes. In ancient civilizations, particularly in the Near East, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures, Rock Dove, the wild ancestor of domestic pigeons, was often associated with Gods and Goddesses as a symbol of beauty, fertility and intelligence, and formed a significant part of their religious ceremonies.  

The intelligence and trainability of these birds also made them valued companions, while their remarkable homing ability made them ideal for carrying messages over long distances. Throughout history, ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, later medieval and modern societies used pigeons for military and civil communication. As a matter of fact, Odisha, a state in Eastern India retired its last pigeon post as late as March 2008. This trusted network of communication in India can be traced back to the Mauryan Empire (circa 321-297 BCE), and remained reliably in use for centuries before the British set up a structural postal system during colonialism in the country. 

While young farm-raised pigeons, called squabs, are eaten to this day as a reliable and gentle source of protein, that is low fat, low carb and calorically light, their much-disgusted poop also works as an excellent organic fertilizer, called guano, that offers several benefits for gardening and farming. When feeding on grains and seeds, the natural diet of pigeons, pigeon poop is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are essential nutrients for plant growth and development. These nutrients promote healthy root development, flowering, and overall plant health. Besides, pigeon poop also plays its role in improving soil structure, increasing water retention, and reducing soil-borne diseases. Pigeon poop even attracts beneficial insects that help control pests, contributing to a diverse ecosystem, thus reducing the need of chemical pesticides.  

Even when pigeons occasionally nibble on human scraps – stale bread, pizza crust, fries, chips, bits of meat - the leftovers thrown to them by people unconcerned of pigeons' biology, this does not make their droppings toxic or dangerous. It only renders them a little less nourishing for the earth. 

And contrary to wide-spread belief among urban dwellers, who associate pigeons mainly with disease-causing pathogens in their poop, scientific studies reveal that pigeons, and by extension, their dropping play a positive role in urban ecology.  Pigeons occupy ecological niches in urban environments that might otherwise be unfilled. They help maintain balance in these artificial ecosystems by interacting with other species and contributing to the urban food web. Besides, observing pigeon behavior and their intelligent interactions with the environment can provide educational opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore wildlife and ecosystem dynamics - opportunities that are often limited in cities.

In my personal experience, I witnessed a patch of bare soil in my concrete backyard downtown, turn into a lush bed of green grass literally within two days after I decided to feed the pigeons on that patch of soil instead of in a tray sitting on concrete. It was certainly not the seeds and grains the pigeons were being fed on - the millet, the sorghum and the sunflower seeds that sprouted into grass, but the tinier seeds already latent in soil, awaiting a touch of tenderness that seemingly only pigeons could offer with their constantly preening beaks and gentle feet. 

Every shuffle and every peck with which they picked their feed, they loosened the top layer of soil, aerating it to life, while waking up the dormant seeds as they moistened them with tiny droplets from their beaks. Their every scratch searching for more food, distributed the moisture evenly into the soil, and every foot movement pressed those now alive seeds back deeper into the soil, while creating micro-channels for germination as they strolled and waited for more food. All the while, they fertilized the soil with their nitrogen-rich organic matter - their nourishing to the soil and seed-feeding poop. They not only enriched the soil, but literally farmed a small piece of earthy land on dead concrete, turning it into a natural green treat for my eyes and returning a living ecosystem to my environment.

To reject pigeons for their poop is to reject a quiet part of our own history - a soft presence that still offers companionship in the concrete world, and fills the ecological gaps within the metallic frames of city's artificial infrastructure.