Week 6: Carrier Pigeons

For my part of the evolution of technology project, I did research on carrier pigeons and their use throughout history. Maybe it's obvious, but carrier pigeons are a little bit outdated in this new age of technology. So what exactly were carrier pigeons then?

Carrier pigeon with a message strapped to its back

Carrier pigeons are a type of pigeons called Homing pigeons. In agreement with their name, these pigeons are known for their ability to go back to their  "home" or nest. This makes them the perfect one way mailing system that can bring messages back to its nest where its owner awaits. One simply would just had to have the bird brought to the place in which they wanted to receive a message from, have the message attached, and have the bird sent home. Next thing you know, the pigeon is home in half the time that it took to get to the messenger surpassing things like: different types of traffic, weather conditions, and untrustworthy humans, these pigeons became an extremely reliable method of sending different messages and mail over long distances.

Carrier pigeon being released from a tank

The first carrier pigeon was said to have been released by Noah, but we also know that some of the first carrier pigeons were used to send horse owners the results of chariot races back in ancient Rome. The ancient Persians were also known for using carrier pigeons to communicate. The next time carrier pigeon became big and even peaked in their use, was during the times of WWI and WWII. France was the first to use pigeons in the masses, using over 30,000 of them by the end of WWI. They even ended up having to make a law that had people sentenced to death for interfering with the military pigeons’ flights because of their importance in the war. This lead to a lot of carrier pigeon use from different countries during WWII after seeing the effectiveness of the birds. This also lead to Germany deploying trained hawks to combat the pigeons and stop important messages from being sent. The Germans also used carrier pigeons for recon by strapping cameras to them. With more countries getting involved with carrier pigeons, during WWII 250,000 carrier pigeons were used by all of the militaries combined.

Carrier pigeons are rarely talked about, but they really did have a part in forming the way people communicate to this day by basically laying the foundation for the use of a mailing system, which of course has evolved to a point where we don't even have to leave a room to talk to virtually anyone anymore. Carrier pigeons also played a huge result in the results of the two world wars so it is truly shocking how we never talk about them in history.

vassallo history wordpress.com carrier pigeons 
scienceabc.com pigeon post
nytimes.com history of the carrier pigeon