Pigeons' Trashed Feet

While most people focus on how pigeons create waste in the city, I want to instead focus on how urban waste impacts pigeons. 

When I was a child my parents took me on a day trip to Amsterdam. We visited a big square where, like in many urban centers, a large number of pigeons were strutting around, looking for food. For me, these weirdly tame and somewhat dopey looking birds were unremarkable. There was nothing really noteworthy about the pigeons. They had feathers in various shades of gray and fleshy things above their beaks that looked like dried chewing gum.

The one thing that did catch my attention were their mangled looking feet. Some of them were missing toes, others had large masses, and some had no toes at all! Like many other people, I thought the birds were diseased and should be avoided. I later learned that these pigeons weren’t sick but that they were being negatively impacted by a very specific kind of waste.

So first a quick note about pigeon feet. Most pigeons have scales on their feet much like the skin of reptiles although the underside of their feet is remarkably soft. Their feet are red-pinkish in colour and are supposed to have 4 toes on each foot of which three point forward and one going backwards. I say ‘supposed to have’ because quite often this is actually not the case. Which brings us to the intersection between waste and pigeon feet.

An already damaged pigeon's foot before (left) and after (right) destringing. Photo by author.

In 2019, Professor Fréderic Jiguet and colleagues published an article about what they called ‘stringfoot’. The team of French researchers studied pigeons in 46 districts in Paris by walking through each district for an hour. During each of these walks, they chose 30 pigeons and they gave each of these pigeons a score ranging from zero to eight. A zero would mean that a pigeon had all toes and no damage, while an eight indicated that all eight toes had been injured, disfigured, or had fallen off. While the researchers expected infectious pigeon diseases would be to blame, what they found was far more surprising.

Human hair was the main culprit! 

Because it’s an organic material it might be easy to forget that hair can also be waste. For urban wildlife like pigeons, discarded hair can severely impact their lives. Other trash that hurts their feet includes many forms of string, wire, bits of rope, and even bracelets. The reason these long wiry substances are disastrous for pigeons is because they are ground feeders.

Pigeons walk rather than hop. This means that, as soon as they encounter a hair, piece of string, or wire, it is highly likely that it will wrap around their ankles or toes. As they continue to walk, each step pulls the hair tighter around their feet, eventually cutting off blood flow and causing necrosis. 

Sadly, once a pigeon has stringfoot, their situation can deteriorate rapidly. The string itself can also collect waste while the pigeon navigates the city, scavenging for crumbs. More hair, pieces of anti-pigeon netting, bits of plastic, twigs, and many other urban objects get stuck around pigeons’ feet. Because of this, a pigeon might get stuck while trying to fly away, get tied up with other pigeons, or even end up with double string foot, where both feet end up tied together. Imagine having your feet tied together as you try to walk through the city! 

There is hope, however!

Increasingly people are aware that pigeons are not disgusting but that they actually need help to mitigate some of the challenges of urban waste. All over the world there are groups of urban citizens who have set up voluntary networks of so-called ‘destringers’.

These groups often organize events called ‘Stringfoot Sunday’ on which they go out armed with tweezers, scissors, antiseptic gel, and other instruments to catch pigeons and relieve them of their stringfoot. Amsterdam is now an exemplary city when it comes to helping pigeons and often organizes such events - you can learn more about them on Instagram groups such as pigeon rescue in the Netherlands, or Pigeon Stringfoot & Rescue in London. People give freely of their time and money. They are motivated by the idea that because it is human waste that is negatively impacting pigeons, humans have a responsibility to provide pigeons with some relief.

Have a look online and consider joining such events in your city!

https://youtu.be/xgwO4EVKVxM?si=gX5mJZ_Y-DmPxBhV

Pigeons are amazing urban birds who deserve our attention and care.

Before closing, I just want to share some really cool facts about pigeons. Pigeons have remarkable homing capabilities as they can navigate hundreds of kilometers back home in non-stop flight. They are incredibly fast flyers, easily reaching 100 kilometers per hour, regularly out flying birds of prey. Pigeons breed year-round and despite the fact that they’re not mammals, they raise their large amount of babies on milk. This milk is actually the lining of their crop in their neck and contains so much protein it would make bodybuilders jealous. And as was discussed in a previous animal highlight about pigeons, they are smart. They recognize human faces and are capable of distinguishing paintings by Monet from paintings by Picasso.

Finally, as is evidenced from the numerous pigeons who live with disabilities caused by urban waste, they are also resilient and adaptable animals who are deserving of more considered attention. 

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Herre de Bondt has done research on rats in Amsterdam, crows in Tokyo, and gulls in The Hague. His work has now brought him to London where his PhD project is concerned with urban bird feeding practices. From hanging up fatballs for chirpy robins to tossing seed to flocks of ‘flying rats’, Herre is determined to investigate the inherently multispecies practice of bird feeding. He is particularly interested in the ways non-human animals inform and shape the contemporary city in collaboration with – and in defiance of – humans.

You can connect with Herre via Twitter (@HerreBondt).Learn more about our team here.  

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