Pigeons

On any given week, Dave Champagne can be found scouring the nooks and crannies of San Francisco in an effort to hunt down one of the city’s most notorious pests.

CHAMPAGNE: The worst jobs are the church steeples. They’re normally infested. And it’s — you gotta suit up in, like, a spacesuit to clean it. They’re smart animals, you know? If you have something missing, a spike falls down, if you don’t do something right, they find a breach. They will capitalize on it.

Champagne doesn’t deal with rats, squirrels, or termites. He’s the owner of a company called Bird Busters, Incorporated. And one bird in particular makes up the bulk of his business.

CHAMPAGNE: Pigeons. You know, you think they’re not too bright but they’re pretty tenacious considering they’re still here. Once they find a place to live, they’re not going to leave.

It’s estimated that there are more than 8 million pigeons living on the streets of North American cities. Most of them are concentrated in busy urban centers. They gather in enormous flocks in parks. They roost on roofs, in lightwells, and under bridges. And their acidic poop eats away at buildings, car paint, and solar panels. Cities pay companies like Bird Busters millions of dollars a year to get rid of them. But before pigeons were a pest, they were celebrated, and even worshiped.

BLECHMAN: It’s really only in England and America that we’ve seen them as so-called rats of the sky. The reality is that it’s a very, very gentle creature. The only real problem is when there’s just too many of them.

For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is The Economics of Everyday Things. I’m Zachary Crockett. Today: pigeons.

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Pigeons weren’t always a nuisance. Most feral pigeons are descendants of the rock dove, a part of the Columbidae family of birds. In fact, there’s not much difference between a street pigeon and the most romantic bird on Earth.

BLECHMAN: The white doves that are released at weddings are just pigeons that happen to be colored white.

That’s Andrew Blechman. He’s a journalist and the author of the book Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird.

BLECHMAN: Pigeons have been worshiped since we’ve been homo sapiens. They were seen as fertility goddesses. They’re all through the Bible.

By most accounts, pigeons are the world’s oldest domesticated bird. They were collected and trained as far back as 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Ancient Egyptians kept huge flocks of them for food, and used their excrement to fertilize vegetables and fruit trees. But over time, humans discovered another use for the pigeon.

BLECHMAN: They’re extremely intelligent. You train them as to where home is, and then you take them somewhere, and then they’ll go back home and you can tie a little message to their legs and they’ll fly it back. Some of these pigeons can fly 600 to 1000 miles away. They will hone in on their loft, literally like a laser guided missile from a thousand miles away. And they’ll go through, without food, without water, they’ll go through different weather.

Pigeons can fly for up to 16 hours straight and hit speeds of 60 miles per hour. They couple this athleticism with an astonishing sense of direction that some scientists say stems from tiny bits of magnetite in their brains.

BLECHMAN: They use that to detect the Earth’s magnetic field. It’s almost like they were designed perfectly to do this.

In a way, they were: They were selectively bred over centuries to fly further distances and return home. And in the years before the widespread use of the telegraph, that wasn’t just a parlor trick. In 1851, for instance, a German book publisher named Paul Julius Reuter used pigeons to deliver stock prices from Belgium to Germany — a distance of 400 miles.

BLECHMAN: There was a telegraph wire that was laid between Brussels and Berlin, but there was a gap in the Ardennes. And Reuter came up with the idea of filling it with pigeons. So he was the first one to get the news to Berlin from Brussels and from Brussels to Berlin. That’s literally how Reuters news service began. It was on the backs of pigeons. 

The pigeon’s talents were also put to use on the battlefield.

BLECHMAN: Every major superpower in all of world history utilized pigeons.

During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the French military used pigeons to send thousands of messages past enemy lines. By World War I, the U.S. even had a dedicated pigeon corps that bred and trained the birds to deliver messages while under siege. By war’s end, pigeons had a 95 percent success rate.

BLECHMAN: Telegraph wires can get cut, you know. Wires can also be intercepted. Pigeons are the lowest tech you can use. And sometimes, lowest tech is the best tech.

Some pigeons exhibited legendary acts of valor. When Allied troops were surrounded by German soldiers during an attack in October 1918, they relied on a pigeon named Cher Ami to call for help. He was shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, and nearly lost his leg. But he managed to fly 25 miles back to headquarters in less than half an hour.

BLECHMAN: Cher Ami went through all the gunfire. All the guns were trained on it, and somehow he made it back, barely breathing.

During World War II, the US used 54,000 war pigeons, including the legendary G.I. Joe. He delivered an order to call off the bombing of an Italian city, saving the lives of at least 1,000 Allied troops.

BLECHMAN: What they performed were massive feats of heroism. And they saved tens of thousands of lives. You’re talking people’s sons, people’s husbands, people’s fathers who came home from the war thanks to, you know, like a 3-lb. bird.

When the Dickin Award — the highest honor for animals who served in the military — was created in 1943, the first 3 recipients were pigeons. Today, 75 of those medals have been awarded, and pigeons hold 32 of them. But pigeons don’t just deliver things. The Coast Guard has enlisted them in search and rescue efforts. They’ve ferreted out defective drug capsules at pharmaceutical factories. And, they’ve made a name for themselves as elite athletes in the sport of pigeon racing.

BLECHMAN: They’re trucked out to a distant spot. And then they’re released from these trucks that have these trap doors that just open on both sides. I mean, and these are like 18 wheelers just filled with pigeons. So it’s like a giant starting gate. And you’ll have some kind of judge or witness to make sure it’s done properly. There’s one starting gate. But unlike a racetrack with the horses, they’re flying all over the place to, like, endless finish lines rooftops all over Brooklyn, Queens, North Jersey, parts of Westchester. They hone in on their home loft and and they land. And then they’re all wearing a special race bracelet across an ankle, and they’re scanned in quickly. It’s all computerized and then it’s all sent to a central database.

Pigeon racing first achieved popularity in Belgium toward the end of the 19th century. For a while, it was a popular sport for the working class. These days, it’s less popular — but it has attracted a new demographic with much deeper pockets in China and Taiwan. In 2019, a top racing pigeon named Armando sold to a Chinese buyer for $1.4 million dollars. That record was broken a few months later, when the Belgian racer New Kim went for $1.9 million after a heated bidding war. In Asia, prize pots for the largest pigeon races can reach into the tens of millions of dollars. And a champion pigeon can continue printing money even after its career is over.

BLECHMAN: The winners — I mean, they’re studded out essentially. Just like horses are! The sperm of one of these racers can go for, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, it’s big business.

There’s a small but thriving economy that caters to the pigeon racing community, selling natural grain mixes, supplements, and antibiotics.

BLECHMAN: You know, you’re not gonna feed an athlete mac and cheese off of the supermarket shelf. I mean, there’s endless formulas. They’re looking for carbohydrate content, for protein content, for the highest source of a certain seed. Whole businesses have grown up around it. 

But today, the biggest industry around pigeons is the one trying to get rid of them. Around the world, cities have been plagued by millions of feral pigeons, who roost in local businesses, and cover sidewalks in acidic poop. So, how exactly did pigeons go from fancy to feral? And what kind of work goes into reclaiming the city streets from these resilient birds?

CHAMPAGNE: I do a billboard every six months now, and I’ve taken out 2,000 pounds of bird crap. And I swear when I’m up there, this is what I think: I went to college for this.  

That’s coming up.

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Pigeons are thought to have first arrived in America in the 1600s, when European settlers brought rock doves over on ships as a source of food. But over time, many domestic pigeons escaped and became feral. These populations of wild pigeons increased dramatically in the first half of the 20th century, when racing pigeons left rooftop coops in cities like New York for a life on the streets.

BLECHMAN: They love to be on cliffs. You will not see them in trees. And our cities are really just concrete mountains, you know — there are just concrete cliffs everywhere. 

Again, that’s Andrew Blechman.

BLECHMAN: So that’s why they’re on our ledges. That’s why they’re on our bridge superstructures. That’s why they’re on the I-beams. And the reality is they like being around us.

So, why are there so many feral pigeons in places like San Francisco and New York City? Well, for starters, pigeons aren’t migratory. When they’re not made to deliver messages hundreds of miles away, they prefer to find a good ledge somewhere and settle down. They breed basically year-round, have a fast reproduction cycle, and can survive on the streets for three to five years. They’re also highly adaptable, and eat just about anything humans discard — from pizza crust to fried chicken.

BLECHMAN: Every city will have the proverbial crazy older person who, at three or four in the morning, will go out onto the streets when they’re not being spotted and open up giant bags of feed — like 30, 40 pound bags of feed to feed their pigeons. And that will cause overbreeding, which actually stresses the population out.

In some cities, it’s now illegal to feed pigeons. But that hasn’t stopped feral populations from thriving. City dwellers either love them, like Bert, from Sesame Street.

BERT: I love pigeons, and I love how they walk! And I’ve created a really cool dance called doin’ the pigeon…

Or hate them, like the 1950s singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer.

LEHRER: “All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we’re poisoning pigeons in the park…”

One thing is certain: all of these pigeons can cause a lot of damage. An estimate from 2000 put total pigeon-related structural damage in the U.S. at over a billion dollars a year. That has spawned a big business for bird control professionals like Dave Champagne.

CHAMPAGNE: I’m from Louisiana originally, so I visit my cousin down there. And they kind of laugh that I do bird stuff. Because where I’m from, they just shoot ‘em.

Champagne started his company, Bird Busters, nearly 30 years ago after noticing that the big pest control firms often didn’t know how to deal with birds.

CHAMPAGNE: A lot of pest control companies aren’t good at it because it’s tricky. They like to spray and bait. That’s the main money for those smaller companies, you know, the ones on the ground. We have to get up in the air. It’s not easy, the stuff we do.

Today, he helps businesses and cities across Northern California get rid of unwanted birds.

CHAMPAGNE: I work with everybody at Salesforce to, you know, Google to Amazon. All of them hire us. I’ve done bridges, freeways, the big billboards you see on the freeway. No one escapes a bird problem.

Champagne deals with all kinds of flying creatures — seagulls, owls, swallows, hawks. But he says around 60 percent of his business comes from pigeons, which like to roost in local businesses and private residences.

CHAMPAGNE: Most of the buildings we deal with — like Victorians? — they love Victorians. I mean, there’s nooks and crannies and little ornate balconies. We do a lot of lightwells. It’s like a — if you live in a city, you open up your bathroom windows in an apartment, there’s this shaft that goes down between the buildings. People open these windows, and all of a sudden, there’s four or five birds that have been nesting there all winter.

Clients call Bird Busters for a few reasons. For starters, pigeons produce a tremendous amount of poop — about 25 pounds per bird, per year.

CHAMPAGNE: They cause a lot of structural damage when they sit in a spot and crap all day. Their poop is high in acidity. And it will wreck a car paint job. 

CROCKETT: Wow.

CHAMPAGNE: Sometimes it’s just stained on the side of the building. And I can scrub it and clean it and disinfect it, but the damage is done.

This can especially be a problem for people with solar panels.

CHAMPAGNE: They’re a perfect place for pigeons to nest under. I mean, they love them. And then what happens is the poop slopes downhill, it clogs the gutters up, and it starts to destroy the roof.

Excessive pigeon droppings can also pose health hazards. Like any excrement, it’s filled with fungi and bacteria that can be harmful if inhaled. Pigeon-related infections in humans are pretty rare — but hospitals, private businesses, and cities don’t want to take on that risk.  And then, there’s the sound.

CHAMPAGNE: The sound they make — the harmonic — it vibrates through the house. They coo all morning long because they’re hanging out, deciding what to do, and they normally go out and eat and party all day, or loaf. They come back in the evening, and they do the same thing, and people — it drives them crazy.

When Champagne’s team is called to a job, the first step is to get the pigeons out. And that part isn’t too complicated.

CHAMPAGNE: You just chase them out. Pigeons are so chill. They never come at you. They don’t attack anyone. They’re puppy dogs. I mean, they just don’t care.

If you had a problem with pigeons a hundred years ago, you’d just shoot them, or kill them with poison pellets. Even today, there aren’t any federal laws that prevent the slaughter of pigeons. The U.S.D.A. labels them an invasive species. And the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which protects many species of native bird, does not apply to feral pigeons. But in most cities, including San Francisco, the pigeon control industry has shifted from killing pigeons to humanely removing them. The modern-day focus is on moving pigeons elsewhere, and preventing them from coming back.

CHAMPAGNE: The same birds will come back. It’s crazy. They keep scoping out their old home. And I didn’t believe that, but I’ve seen it so many times.

There are dozens of companies, with names like Bird Barrier, Bird-B-Gone, and Bird-X, that manufacture and sell pigeon prevention products to guys like Champagne. The market is full of all kinds of devices — sticky gels that smell like garlic, holographic prisms that reflect sunlight, and plastic decoy owls. Champagne uses different pigeon tools for different jobs. One of the most popular options is netting.

CHAMPAGNE: That’s a primary thing for loading docks, parking garages, big areas where you’re just not going to chase the birds around. It’s more cost effective because you could do a big area with, like, big pieces of net. We’d net the entire loading dock ceiling to where the birds can’t land on any place. They can’t get up in the ductwork, the mechanical boxes. So, basically when they fly in, they hit the net, they bounce, they leave. 

For tall ledges, fire escapes, and rooftops, he’ll employ rows of spikes, or bird wire that make it harder for pigeons to land.

CHAMPAGNE: It’s a thin wire that’s coated. And what you do is you attach it to a post and then you run it to another post with a spring on it. So, when the birds come in to land they hit the wire, and it bounces back. They can’t grab onto the wire. It’s too thin. 

One of his favorite pigeon prevention measures is something called the Bird Track.

CHAMPAGNE: If the birds land on it, every four seconds, it just sends a low, low, low voltage out that gives them a little zap. And I’ve not seen birds come back for a second try.

For his services, Champagne charges anywhere from around $600 to six figures, depending on the complexity of the job. The pigeon removal business has put his three daughters through college and afforded him a nice nest in the San Francisco suburbs. And even though he spends his days evicting pigeons, he has no beef with the birds.

CHAMPAGNE: I think they’re just trying to survive like everyone else.

Andrew Blechman, the journalist who spent several years chronicling pigeons, understands the need for urban bird control. But he doesn’t think that pigeons deserve the bad rap they often get.

BLECHMAN: The way we look at pigeons is just unfair. Why not see them as the whimsical happenstance in a concrete jungle? They’ve been with us since the very beginning; they like being with us. They’re incredibly docile creatures. They’re tremendous athletes. I would just urge people to kind of take a new look at them and see them for what they are, which is just, you know, a winged creature that chooses to live amongst us.

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For The Economics of Everyday Things, I’m Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilley and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Moritz-Rabson.

BLECHMAN: Steroids are a problem in pigeon racing. So, yeah, I guess the only way to put it is, like, that’s a lot of breast meat.