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Journalism of Courage
Until a few years ago, the tussle between man and another bipedal species, the rock pigeon, was a daily feature at Jaipur’s historic Albert Hall Museum. The pigeons were a photogenic lot but as their droppings stained the iconic domes and the fountains in the courtyard, around 2007, the museum decided it had to act.
First came a falcon — to shoo the pigeons away. “It was just one falcon, tied with a string, and employed for a demonstration before then Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and top officials,” said former Albert Hall Superintendent Rakesh Cholak, who served in the position for about two decades.
But when the idea ran into opposition from bird lovers, the museum tried other ways — from covering the windows with glass and the indoor balconies with spikes. While that helped, partially, the museum authorities decided to cover much of the structure with cotton and nylon nets.
The nets, says Mohammad Arif, the current superintendent of the museum, have largely kept the pigeons out, but the stray ones still find their way in.
Delhi to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Jaipur, almost every Indian city has a burgeoning pigeon population that has left an indelible mark on the cityscape — from pigeon feeding spots that create traffic bottlenecks to stained home balconies and that unmissable white trickle that’s a hallmark of most statues at city squares.
According to the 2023 State of India’s Birds report, between 2000 and 2023, the population of pigeons in India went up by more than 150%. In a 2021 study, published in the Journal of Urban Ecology, K S Gopi Sundar, co-chair of the IUCN Stork, Ibis and Spoonbill Specialist Group, and his colleagues found that pigeons were among the five most abundant bird species in Delhi.
So abundant that late last year, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi said it was considering banning pigeon feeding spots. Other cities, too, have had their share of struggles.
In March 2023, the Thane Municipal Corporation put up posters, warning of a Rs-500 fine on those found feeding pigeons.
Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has a provision which enables the civic body to levy a penalty of Rs 500 on those found feeding animals and birds. But residents complain that the rule, which doesn’t mention pigeons specifically, is hardly ever implemented.
In 2022, a campaign by the Residents’ Association of Khar had led to the demolition of the Khar Kabutarkhana, a Mumbai landmark metres away from the railway station.
Anandini Thakoor, managing trustee of the Khar Residents’ Association, says, “People would purchase grains and feed the pigeons at the kabutarkhana, as a result of which the entire area would be covered in bird droppings, and people would slip and fall.”
So aggrieved were the residents that the Association even deployed a watchman to ensure the birds weren’t fed. “We approached everyone, from the civic body to the police, but to no avail. Finally, we deployed a watchman, then approached the court and at last managed to have the kabutarkhana razed,” she says.
Between December 7 and 10, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) levied fines to the tune of Rs 15,500 across its 15 ward offices as punitive measures against individuals feeding pigeons in open spaces. PMC Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kadam said, “There are health risks due to pigeon’s droppings and we have introduced an awareness campaign with several banners across the city.”
Ahmedabad’s iconic chabutro — intricately carved towers made of wood, stone or concrete that have canopied enclosures at the top — were originally meant as bird feeders for sparrows and other smaller birds, but are now overrun with pigeons. The Amdavad Municipal Corporation, too, recently identified and flagged several traffic bottlenecks at spots where people stopped to feed birds.
While cities are struggling to tackle this explosion in pigeon population, it isn’t — and wasn’t — always a fraught relationship. The birds have fascinated humans, with whom they have coexisted for several millennia.
Though the written history of their relationship is disputed, some scholars suggest that around 4,500 years ago, ancient Mesopotamian settlements domesticated rock doves or Columba livia — the wild ancestors of today’s pigeons. In fact, pigeons are said to be among the first birds that humans domesticated.
Since then, pigeons have played an essential role in human well-being with their meat considered a rich source of protein. The birds also contributed to agricultural developments in many countries, with their guano or excrement a natural fertiliser — so rich in nutrients, according to a report by the BBC Wildlife, that one load of it was worth 10 from any other species.
When humans realised that these birds could fly at high speed — as fast as 144 kmph — and had a powerful homing instinct that helps them navigate long distances back to the location they identify as home, they started using pigeons to deliver messages. This was first put to test some 3,000 years ago, and by 5th Century BC, Syria and Persia were known to have had widespread networks of message-carrying pigeons.
“It was a pigeon that delivered the results of the first Olympics in 776 BC and a pigeon that first brought news of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo over twenty-five hundred years later,” Andrew D Blechman wrote in his book, Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird (2006).
In the two World Wars, more than a million pigeons were used for sending messages. The American Signal Pigeon Corps had 3,150 soldiers and 54,000 birds in the early 1940s. These birds were credited with saving the lives of thousands of soldiers — according to reports, during World War II, 32 of them being awarded the Dickin Medal, an honour instituted in the United Kingdom in 1943 for the contribution of animals in the war.
Then there’s Cher Ami, a pigeon who is a war legend in his own right — during World War I, it is said to have delivered a message to American commanders despite a wound to its breast and a nearly severed leg. It’s an act of valour that earned it a spot as a taxidermy specimen at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History at Washington DC.
Pigeons are still used for carrying messages in some parts of the world. The Odisha Police, for instance, has preserved a flock of the birds who until recently were put to use when disasters cut off communication links such as the Internet and mobile phones.
Besides, for centuries, humans have bred pigeons for pleasure. Mughal Emperor Akbar is known to have had a colony of some 20,000 pigeons and often travelled with the birds, which were transported in dovecotes.
It’s a legacy that has continued in the older cities of the subcontinent, where kabutarbazi or pigeon gaming is a sport and spectacle.
“Pigeons were trained to do quite complicated manoeuvres: the wheel (charkh), a lusty movement ending with the pigeon throwing itself over in a full circle and turning somersaults (bazi). A select pigeon could perform 15 charkhs and 70 bazis in one session,” writes Ursula Sims-Williams, curator of Iranian languages at the British Library, in an article published in the British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog.
The fascination with the birds, combined with the concept of bird feeding, which is the cornerstone of many faiths, has led to an explosion in pigeon numbers — so much so, that the birds attract and repulse in equal measure.
Flying rats or urban heroes? The jury is still out.
Much like Akbar, people before and after him carried pigeons with them around the world. As they did that, these birds reached the remotest corners of the planet — they either escaped or were released — and began to proliferate, especially in the cities.
Experts say this ability of pigeons to survive and spread can be attributed to a combination of traits. “What gives them an edge in terms of other birds is that they produce crop milk. Pigeons are one of two or three families of birds such as flamingos which produce this. It is called milk but it is not actually milk. It is a proteinaceous secretion that they produce from the crop (an organ in their throat) and that gives them an additional ability to give nutrition to young ones even if there is food scarcity around,” says K S Gopi Sundar.
Pigeons dominate urban areas for a reason. Their ancestors were cliff-dwellers and the city buildings, which mimic pigeon’s natural habitat, are perfect nest sites for them. Moreover, these birds are not too fussy about their nests, which are usually built of twigs, straw and stems. As cities have plentiful supplies of food (rather, food waste) and water, pigeons can breed round the year — they typically lay eggs up to six times a year — and thrive in such areas.
Besides, they have very little foraging to do, considering their human benefactors feed them round the year.
Abhilash Khandekar, environmental activist and co-founder of The Nature Volunteers (TNV), a conservation movement NGO, says, “In India, people believe that if they feed makka (maize) and other grains to pigeons, they will get punya. As a result, these birds keep getting more and more food, and continue to breed which has led to their proliferation like rats.”
Khandekar also points out that people in parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have started to build cement bird towers for pigeons to nest and breed. This has also contributed to an unnatural rise in the pigeon population in these areas.
Sundar says the proliferation of pigeons has led to other avian species being edged out of urban spaces. “Studies show that pigeons have outfought or outcrowded sparrows and mynas in Bengaluru. Pigeons are known to push out birds that want to nest on a ledge or any other small space,” he says.
The acidic pigeon droppings are also known to damage infrastructure as they eat away at buildings and machinery, potentially threatening their structural integrity. Accumulated droppings can also block the gutters of roofs, causing water damage.
Doctors and experts say the rise in the pigeon population has increased the risk of zoonotic diseases that spread from animals to humans.
Dr Jayalakshmi T K, senior consultant, Pulmonology, at Apollo Hospitals, Navi Mumbai, says that over the last three years, she has had many patients coming in with “pigeon-related diseases” caused by exposure to dust from droppings and feathers.
“The dust activates a part of the immunity of lungs which leads to the release of immune cells. These cells release a lot of mediators to keep away offensive allergens. This is what harms the lungs, leading to conditions such as Bird Fancier’s Lung (BFL), a type of hypersensitivity pneumonitis,”
Dr Jayalakshmi says.
“BFL leads to thickening inside the lung and affects the oxygenation of the patient, which causes the oxygen level to fall. It can lead to gradual increase in lung thickening and fibrosis,” she adds.
The burgeoning pigeon population has been linked to other diseases such as histoplasmosis (a fungal infection which affects the lungs), cryptococcosis (a fungal infection which impacts the lungs and brain), and psittacosis (a bacterial infection).
“The rise in the pigeon population has led to an emergence in zoonotic diseases. The spread is still pretty low in terms of the number of people being affected, and also low in terms of what it does to people. So, anything that gives symptoms such as a common cold or fever is not taken very seriously,” says Sundar.
Back at Albert Hall, beyond the purview of the overarching nets, scores of pigeons sit perched — on balcony railings and roofs. They are a tenacious species and some among them will eventually find a way in, just like the one in the grey-black coat that waddles in through the entryway, along with the tourists.
With Hamza Khan, Jaipur; Nayonika Bose, Mumbai; Ritu Sharma, Ahmedabad; Anuradha Mascarenhas, Pune
