![]() We know it happened in the Fertile Crescent, and that it coincided with people farming grain-because if there’s one thing that pigeons adore, it’s grain.ĭomestication is a complicated process. We have some rough information, but it’s really hard to untangle that early stuff because we’re bumping up against the dawn of recorded writing. ![]() Pigeons were domesticated over 5,000 years ago. To understand where they came from, you have to understand purebred pigeons. They’re basically like a stray cat or like a feral dog: mutts mixed from a whole bunch of different, really amazing breeds. What makes our city pigeons really cool is that they are feral domesticated animals. Adrian Jakubowski/EyeEm/Getty What’s so awesome about pigeons? City pigeons are domesticates gone feral. Mosco talked with Atlas Obscura about the long history of domestication, the way that cities mimic a natural setting, and why pigeons are worthy of wonder. Flitting across continents and millennia, Mosco describes how pigeons have been domesticated, depicted in art (and the Bible), and recruited as allies in combat-and why some humans soured on them. Her new book, A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World’s Most Misunderstood Bird, is part ornithology guide, part ode. ![]() Today Mosco works as an illustrator and author (and caretaker of happily noisy pet parrots), and recently decided to swoop into pigeon biology, genetics, communication, flirting, and more. “I’ve always thought they are kind of cooler than a lot of people think.” “I was interacting with them, but it took a long time for me to realize that they weren’t native to the area and wonder why they were here,” she says. Other kids sometimes even brought injured pigeons to Mosco, trusting her to shepherd them to a nearby wildlife care center.Įventually, Mosco wanted to learn more about the lives and lineages of these neighborhood fixtures. Growing up in Canadian cities with a bird-watching mom, Rosemary Mosco was no stranger to pigeons. ![]()
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