Here's a beautifully written piece I couldn't disagree more with (but still love to see). Hammond is such a great writer, so eloquent with words.
Hammond ridicules Americans and modern sensitivities that don't appreciate what pigeons have done for humanity. (Now, though, as in so many aspects of life, what once worked has become a nuisance)
We have got ourselves into a terrible muddle on pigeons. We spend fortunes on netting, spikes, and sonic devices to deter them. We put up angry little signs forbidding old ladies from dispensing the crumbs of their scones. We forget that these birds are not wild interlopers that one day decided their lives would be best spent scavenging for crumbs at the feet of American tourists. They are our creation.
Once moulded for our own convenience, we put them to work. Pigeons were the sinews of the classical world. They delivered news of Olympic victories that helped stitch together fractious Greek city-states. They enabled Roman generals like Pliny the Elder to administer a vast and unwieldy empire with messages of law and order. For centuries, the birds allowed communities to become larger, more specialised, ambitious, and innovative. This flapping precursor to the fibre-optic cable made empires and complex societies viable.
Oh, so beautiful:
The whole anti-pigeon mania is, of course, a symptom of a wider modern neurosis. It is the joyless work of health-and-safety panjandrums in a society that, having forgotten its history, now sees a bit of guano as a mortal threat. The pigeon is more than a messy, biological fact; it is our scruffy, cooing conscience and a feathered reminder of historical ingratitude.
It is the joyless work of health-and-safety panjandrums in a society that, having forgotten its history, now sees a bit of guano as a mortal threat.
I hate the pigeons, too; but not their animal being, not their beautiful human history... but the inner-city scavengers they've become.
Lovely observations, well worth a read.