Footless Urban Pigeons Suffer Untold Trials and Tribulations — Tetrapod Zoology

I’m talking here about the domestic form of Columba livia, the so-called Rock pigeon or Rock dove. And, while I’ve mostly paid attention to deformed pigeons here in the UK, it certainly isn’t a UK-only thing, as continental European and North and South American people (and no doubt those of elsewhere in the world too) will confirm.

The Kew bird in the photos here was able to fly around and feed itself, and it might be broadly described as ‘healthy’. However, note that it’s in pretty poor condition. The feathers on its head and neck looked terrible and its rectrices (the big tail feathers) were frayed and shabby. I reckon this is partly due to an inability to groom and scratch itself: obviously, birds use their feet to reach parts that they can’t get to with the bill.

Looking nice, keeping clean. The impact of this is more than cosmetic, since birds with a poorly maintained or unrepaired plumage are disadvantaged in flight relative to tidier individuals, and less able to keep themselves warm and waterproofed. And a bird that isn’t able to groom parts of its plumage is also at risk of being unable to keep on top of parasites like ticks and feather mites. As demonstrated through various experiments, birds with shabby-looking plumage are less attractive as mates (Clayton 1990), so a bad-looking pigeon is likely to be a non-breeding pigeon. It’s also worth noting that (like many animals), pigeons preferentially use one foot more than the other as goes the way they land and perch and sit and so on (Fisher 1957). Individuals that lose or damage their preferred foot might, then, end up being doubly disadvantaged (imagine being right-handed, and then having to rely only on your left hand for evermore). I don’t know how concerned people are about the emotional well-being of animals like urban pigeons (or how far they’re prepared to go in admitting that non-human animals have feelings and states of mind), but I think we can be confident that the most severely deformed of these birds are – at least at times – miserable, unhappy and frustrated.