Matt Collins

Scientific American Magazine posted 8 hours ago | 0 comments

Pigeons as Pilots?

Watch a pigeon dodge traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian. The bird seems to be the very embodiment of unfulfilled potential—it can fly, and yet it walks. Of course, during World War II, pigeons did a fair amount of flying, carrying messages between the front and command posts. But full pigeon promise was never realized. Because the birds were denied the chance to show what they could do in the air—as pilots.

The story of pigeon pilots, as well as all else pigeon, is told in the new book Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan ... And the World, by Courtney Humphries. She ex­­plains that the idea of using pigeons as pilots first occurred to a young B.... [more]