They are the proletariat of birds

  • ikiru@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    They were also brought to the Americas by colonizers. But because pigeons were at times unable to find their natural habitat (cliffs) they flocked to and still live in city buildings, which resemble cliffs. And now they’re hated for it and treated as invasive pests as if they asked for this shit when they’re just trying to survive.

    Solidarity with pigeons.

  • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    I’ve never understood the hate. They are very nice and very pretty birds that are fully adapted to living among humans.

    • hotwarioinyourarea [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, they’re very friendly animals. I used to work in the veterinary industry and some people would bring them in if they were injured. The law requires they be put to sleep if they’re brought in but we always released them when they were better.

      I remember having to hand feed a baby pigeon and it was the sweetest little bird.

  • loaExMachina [any]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    I strongly agree! They have such delicate grey pattern, plus these iridescent feathers, and these orange eyes… I’ve been trying to tell people that and I was appalled to see they didn’t seem to undertsand what I was saying. In one specific instance, I was pointing at the pigelon and saying “Look, isn’t it beautiful? See these patterns? See this rainvow on its collar?” and the guy just said “I don’t know, it’s just a pigeon” . I’m starting to think many people don’t actually look at pigeons. They don’t see their shape their feathers or their colors. They quickly identify it as a pigeon, and immediately attach to them all the ideas they’ve been learning to attach to them : Dirty, invasive, pests… It’s like their not seeing an image, just a whiteboard with a bunch of words, attached to more words. Like these overly labelled comics, but only the labels. They look at things and identity them, but don’t see them.

    • hotwarioinyourarea [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, I think it’s the same for a lot of common animals. In the UK people couldn’t give a shit about mice, rats, squirrels, pigeons but whenever I see one I make sure to point it out to my son and watch them for a while.

    • Magician [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      There’s something about the way people see nature when it’s categorized as a pest or nuisance.

      Weeds are only designated such because of the aesthetics around landowning, lawns and ‘tamed’ land.

      It’s a really depressing, but salient phenomenon because then people without lawns start to value their aesthetics and suddenly care about pests.

      And this sort of logic can be directed at anything or anyone.

  • LordGimp
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    9 months ago

    Rats are cute af too, but that doesn’t stop the plague. Sky rats are just a different variety of pestilence carriers. Yall need to start appreciating possums more. Fuckers eat Lyme disease ticks like chocolate raisins and they’re pretty much immune to rabies too.