While pigeons don't pose an especial health risk to the general population, people who have a lot of contact with them and their excrement - professionally or otherwise - should nonetheless take precautions. — Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa
Buildings are their cliffs, a few twigs suffice as nests, and human food scraps do nicely as meals. City pigeons, also called feral pigeons, among other - some nasty - things, are notorious for their droppings and widely seen as pests. To make matters worse, they breed fast and aren't shy.
But perhaps we view them too harshly. After all, the poor birds are descendants of fugitives and outcasts.
"City pigeons are (descended from) domesticated pigeons that escaped," says Jens Hübel, a veterinarian specialising in ornamental, zoo and wild birds.
Domesticated pigeons were bred - whether for their meat, ability to carry messages, or racing - from wild rock pigeons, which inhabit remote cliffs and rock ledges. Those that were abandoned by their owners or flew the coop - er, dovecote - returned to the wild, many taking up residence in urban areas.
"We don't know the exact composition of their gene pool, but many homing pigeons are among them," Hübel says.
Ringed pigeons can often be seen in flocks of pigeons. They actually belong to breeders who have lost interest in them.
"The birds that don't find their way home are unattractive for pigeon racing," remarks Hübel. "Some 20,000 to 30,000 homing pigeons go astray every weekend during the April-to-September racing season."
Other pigeon breeds have also entered the gene pool of city pigeons. The pigeons with shorter beaks and feathered feet look more like their ancestors.
Parakeets, parrots and even sparrows are cute, but pigeons? They're a plague to many living in cities. But are they really the health risk we make them out to be? — Photo: Robert Michael/dpa
In Germany, at least, city pigeons and wild pigeons are so different that they can't interbreed. Their nesting sites are very different too. For city pigeons, empty spaces on buildings are substitutes for crevices on cliffs. They don't like to nest in trees.
Where humans live, food is close by. City pigeons' diet consists mainly of discarded or leftover food fragments. They scavenge for whatever they can find and have the image of being major disease carriers - "rats with wings" is one widespread moniker.
Are they?
"The role of city pigeons in transmitting disease is overestimated," Hübel says. "The risk is no greater than that from other animals, for example sparrows, crows, chickens and cats."
Common avian parasites such as red mites can, however, become a problem when nests are abandoned and the blood-sucking mites seek another source of food - humans, for instance.
Respiratory infections caused by Chlamydia psittaci bacteria are also possible, but Hübel says only a few people are affected each year in Germany, mostly parrot owners and pigeon breeders. City pigeons are seldom the transmitters.
Nor are they usually responsible for infections with Salmonella bacteria in humans.
"Only 1.3% of the Salmonella bacteria detected in city pigeons are regarded as particularly human pathogenic," Hübel says. And moulds are transmitted neither by city pigeons nor other animals - "a myth that unfortunately still exists."
While pigeons don't pose an especial health risk to the general population, Hübel says people who have a lot of contact with them and their excrement - professionally or otherwise - should nonetheless take precautions. He advises pest controllers, cleaners, pigeon rescuers and the like to wear goggles, a mask and gloves, and change clothing after contact with the birds.
Although they're not dangerous, they can be quite a nuisance. A large flock can foul surfaces, their acidic excrement even able to corrode metal. So it's nice to know how to keep them at bay.
"A damaged roof truss is an invitation to pigeons," points out Hübel. "Repairing it prevents them from settling there."
Should city pigeons already be breeding on your roof or balcony, you ought to get help. To prevent their eggs from hatching, they can be safely removed, boiled and then returned to the nest or replaced with plastic eggs for up to three days after they've been laid, according to Hübel.
If you don't know exactly when the eggs were laid or whether they're from city pigeons and not legally protected wild ones, you should consult someone who's knowledgeable, for example from a local pigeon protection association. They could tell you the eggs' provenance, age and if they can still be replaced or should be allowed to hatch.
Many such groups will also take newly hatched pigeons off your hands as well as provide tips on when you can remove the nest, how to make the nesting site permanently unattractive to city pigeons, and what to do with brooding wild pigeons.
If you come across an injured or apparently sick pigeon, you should gently pick it up, report it to the local agency responsible for lost and found animals, and, if possible, bring it to a veterinarian specializing in birds for first aid.
"A pigeon's suffering often can't be seen - its plumage conceals even drastic weight loss," says Hübel. They shouldn't have to suffer though, he adds, and calls for humane pigeon management. "We need dovecotes where they can do a lot of their defecating, are fed and their eggs are replaced."
Having a sufficient number of dovecotes near pigeons' original roosting places works well, he says. "Closing off alternative nesting sites and prohibiting their feeding in the surrounding area are useful auxilliary measures to encourage pigeons to take to the dovecotes."
A growing number of cities are trying to implement pigeon management plans. One is Berlin, where the pigeon population fell from about 150,000 in 1980 to 19,000 in 2022, according to the city's wildlife commissioner, Derk Ehlert. The number has slightly risen of late though.
Berlin authorities attribute the general decline to increased deterrents that have resulted in fewer breeding places. The city now aims to put a pigeon-friendly management plan into practice that keeps the birds off the streets - homeless shelters, as it were.
"The Senate [city government] is working out a municipal pigeon management concept that includes supervised dovecotes to be established by the city's districts in collaboration with animal welfare associations," Ehlert says. – dpa
