The Origins of Hatred for Pigeons (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The Origins of Hatred for Pigeons (2016)

audubon.org

"Poisoning pigeons in the park" by Tom Lehrer

Spring is here A-suh-puh-ring is here Life is skittles and life is beer I think the loveliest time Of the year is the spring I do, don't you? 'Course you do But there's one thing That makes spring complete for me And makes every Sunday A treat for me

All the world seems in tune On a spring afternoon When we're poisoning pigeons in the park Every Sunday you'll see My sweetheart and me As we poison the pigeons in the park When they see us coming The birdies all try an' hide But they still go for peanuts When coated with cyanide

The sun's shining bright Everything seems all right When we're poisoning pigeons in the park We've gained notoriety And caused much anxiety In the Audubon Society With our games They call it impiety And lack of propriety And quite a variety Of unpleasant names But it's not against any religion To want to dispose of a pigeon

So if Sunday you're free Why don't you come with me And we'll poison the pigeons in the park And maybe we'll do In a squirrel or two While we're poisoning pigeons in the park We'll murder them all Amid laughter and merriment Except for the few We take home to experiment

My pulse will be quickenin' With each drop of strych'nine We feed to a pigeon (It just takes a smidgin!) To poison a pigeon in the park

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY

Apparently it's a popular theme:

Do you ever have that feeling that you want to punch the ceiling

So you stamp down on the floor, you can't take it anymore,

In your search for absolution there is only one solution,

Kick a pigeon in the park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZstUnhT6eI

I've been shat on by pigeons about half a dozen times in 3 different countries. It's a consequence of living in cities as Pigeons are mostly urban dwellers, the same way you probably stepped on dog shit cos the owner didn't scoop it. I don't hate pigeons though, I befriended one guy (could be a girl, who knows) in my patio a year ago here in San Francisco. He had a slight cripple from getting his leg run over. He shows up at the same time every morning for his feed. I usually give him leftover rice or bread and sometimes pumpkin seeds.

I love pigeons. Pigeons are very smart birds[1] and are supposed to have understanding of advanced concepts like time and space.[2]. Humans understandably hate them cos no-one likes getting "shit on" like literally. And since we have guns and poison, we find justifications for mass killing of a species that we declare is a 'nuisance' to our lives.

Vaguely related: Mike Tyson Defends the Pigeon: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/bird-week-mike... ]

[1] How Smart Is This Bird? Let It Count the Ways - https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/science/pigeons-can-learn...

[2] Pigeons are smart enough to perceive abstract concepts like time and space - https://qz.com/1147518/pigeons-are-smart-enough-to-perceive-...

I'm one of those people who dislikes pigeons, and it's interesting to read that at least my belief that pigeons can spread disease doesn't hold much truth.

Personally, I can't relate to the explanation that "pigeon haters" don't like nature crossing over into their orderly city environment. For example, I do like the tons of blackbirds and sparrows in my city.

i personally dislike them, they are rats with wings imo

they bread like crazy and shit on everything. I didn't take much notice when a pair nested under my deck. it wasn't long before two became 10+. It was really difficult to get rid of them.

there are these neighbors that will throw them full loaves of bread. honestly they should be fined and forced to pay the bill for all the cars in front of them that are literally covered in white shit.

If you can feed/attract a feral cat your pigeon problems will be solved.

I lived in a building which was "affected" by pigeons, they filled the nearby balconies with their feces. It was disgusting. I complained to management, nothing was done. They were loud and annoying early in the morning, crapped all over everything, it was maddening. Although pigeons are pretty smart, you can teach them to fear you and even to fear coming anywhere near your balcony, which is what I did. By constantly scaring the bejeesus out of them every time they came near. They eventually decided that the pleasure of crapping on my balcony wasn't worth the terror I would inflict on them.

I had a pigeon problem at one of my previous gigs. The fire escape (where we’d frequently go out to smoke/vape, or try to) was a biohazard area. There was an inches-thick layer of fecal matter coating the ground, it was crackling if you attempted to walk on there, and the smell was toxic. Nevertheless, the pigeons appreciated this situation and were nesting in there. Something was regularly killing them (either a predator or disease) and so someone had to undertake the perilous task of disposing of the bodies otherwise they’d stink up the place even more. I still remember sending an invoice with a “dead pigeon removal” line item.

> They’re certainly noisy, and they defecate on people and property with abandon (and in great volume—a pigeon produces a hefty 25 pounds of excrement per year), but you can say the same about lots of animals.

No you really can't, I have never been shat on by any wild animal besides a pigeon. What animal besides a pigeon shits on a statue so much it visibly coats it in a layer, squirrels certainly don't.

Seriously it's the shit.

as anecdotal as it might be I've been shat on by a seagull and let me tell you it isn't pretty.

Dublin has a real problem with those pests.

Seagulls were the pests of my school, and would swarm anything dropped outside at lunch. I seem to recall hearing about someone being shat on once a week or so, and I assume I heard about it significantly less than it happened. Happened to me once while there too.

This was a good 20 miles from the coast, too, so they're willing to travel to get what they want.

In San Marco square, Venice I saw a seagull fly over a tourist and snatch a pizza right out of his hands. Pretty smart and agile animals, can’t say the same of pigeons (although it’s somewhat a blessing, considering their numbers)

You ever been to a beach?

Pigeon poop is pretty much harmless. It's dog poop everywhere that's annoying.

And seagulls, because they will fly over you on purpose. A pigeon defecating on you is pretty much something that happens randomly.

Also, ducks in nature.

I forgot about geese, those assholes will fight you for fun

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose

> And seagulls, because they will fly over you on purpose

Source? I’m really curious as to how shitting on people provided any evolutionary advantage.

My SO works seasonally in Venice, Italy where there are of course a lot of seagulls.

The birds go as far as land on people's heads and steal whatever food the person was holding.

Garbage bags are also considered a food spurce, so anyone taking out the trash so also at risk.

The only time I've ever been shat on by a seagull was when I was carrying a garbage bag.

Geese and ducks will do that to walkways in suburban areas.

An interesting word I learnt from listening to Daniel Dennett: synanthrope. Such creatures include pigeons, rats, barnswallows, bed bugs. They benefit from living around humans without providing much in the way of return service.

There does seem to be a trend for embracing and celebrating animals which formerly have been considered ugly or pestilent. For example my son was recently introduced to a tarantula named Miss Fuzzyboots. In parody we have Hagrid of the Harry Potter films trotting out dangerous and/or repulsive beasts for class appreciation ("They're seriously misunderstood creatures...")

Is this a sort of moral/aesthetic inversion or are we genuinely expanding our 'circle of empathy'?

http://adami.natsci.msu.edu/blog/2013/04/the-evolution-of-ci...

I don't like pigeons because they overbreed and have become a nuisance. They also poop, a lot. That's reason enough.

They crap on everything. From on high.

Who decides what the correct level of disdain should be for this? Show me the metric. I can't think of many animals that are similar.

To be fair pooping a lot seems to be common among most birds. Hatching ducks and being around chickens it seems like one per minute isn't too far off.

Perhaps it's a result of a smaller digestive tract for the sake of flight?

Absolutely. Birds lighten the load for takeoff. As a kid I remember many small songbirds nesting in the (large, country) back yard, and a pre-launch ejection was almost guaranteed. Avian digestive tracts are simple and not particularly efficient, for the sake of weight.

With hummingbirds it's a steady dribble every few seconds.

The geese in Chicago are the same way. They have dominated the lakefront in some areas. Walking in grass is a guaranteed way to step in nasty green bird shit. They also are fairly large and can be intimidating if you get too close to them.

I love having animals around but without any real predators these birds seem to over breed.

Even up here in Canada, there are people the government hires to keep the population of our national animal down, which apparently involves going up to them and pulling their heads off (very easy because of their thin necks). Because the alternative is, yes, you can't use any grass area for 5 months out of the year.

This sounds like the plot of the book Wringer, but I never imagined it was a thing in real life. Really?

After looking at the book, yes, it's the exact same. They can be grounded in groups by shotgun first, like in the book, although I've heard they're stupid enough to be approached and killed barehanded. In other seasons they spray the eggs with oil while the parents are gone, and then replace them in the nest, to starve the eggs of oxygen and prevent the chicks from developing. If you take the eggs outright the geese will just lay more.

It would be nice if we could open hunting season on them and let them all get killed in a sporting way, but they're said to be repulsive and inedible.

Here's a government publication on it dealing with my area specifically (southern BC).

https://www.ec.gc.ca/mbc-com/6D2B893B-C671-41AF-8439-713305D...

I ride by a flock and can't help but think "dang thats a lot of meat walking around". I have no idea how good or bad they would be to eat.

Geese is great cooking if you know how! There actually a lot less meat there than you might think, and it does take some cooking skill to get right, but that is often the case with game-meat, for example where I'm from elk, which can be super gamey, but also super tasty if prepared correctly.

Growing up, my mom always prepared a roast goose for Christmas dinner. Super tasty.

With respect, many other species could say the same about homo sapiens.

It's okay to put our own human priorities first. If those other species want to complain about us amongst themselves, good for them.

Is this an American thing? The author is talking about "hatred for pigeons" as if it's something universal, but that's pretty much strange for me.

I'm from Spain and even though we generally despise them and also refer to them as "rats with wings", I don't believe I would say I hate them.

I mean, they can be annoying. But if I see someone feeding a group of pigeons the last thing I'm going to think about is how annoying those pigeons can be. I feel like the article describes the hatred for pigeons as something almost anthropologically interesting because of it's magnitude and lack of actual sense, and I certainly only consider them a little annoyance.

However I don't live in a big city so maybe it has to do with that.

I thought this was a solved problem. Is there some reason why we don't have more urban raptors? Are the city pigeons so fouled with urban byproducts that their consumption eventually kills off any unwitting predators?

There are several problems, but one is that raptors tend to well, fly off eventually.

There are currently three hawk families in Warsaw - one of them occupying a nest built specifically for this purpose which nevertheless was empty for five years before the new couple moved in.

The other is that raptors are very bad at dealing with cars. Their evolutionary strengths are seeing far and killing fast. Traffic? Not so much.

Rock doves and crows on the other hand deal with or even benefit from cars.

Pro-tip to not get shat upon by birds: look at the ground and avoid the areas where you see bird poop.

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