the lost one

The pigeon in foreground wears three rings, probably it was forced to participate in a competition and became lost.
They call it sports, I call it animal abuse.

Pigeons are very socially, monogamous and faithful.
For the competition, one of the two is taken away to a place 100 up to 1.000 km afar from home. It must find it's way home... the faster, the better :-\

A great many of them fail. Some are killed by birds of prey. Others perish completely exhausted, die of hunger or thirst.
Some become lost - they live in the cities, where they don't find appropriate food. Many of them get ill as a consequence of malnutrition.

They try to get home so desperately, because different cruel methods are applied:
One is to separate a couple. The one taken away wants to get back to its partner.
Or one partner is taken away when there is a nest of eggs or nestlings to take care of.

The birds who find the way back home in an acceptable timeframe must do it again and again (sometimes 14 times a year).

In my opinion, the owners absolutely don't love their pigeons - they only love fame and money $€£ and don't care about the animals' feelings.
Some(only some?) of them kill the birds which return too late, because they are "useless".
How cruel can humans be just for a "hobby", which is as useful as a hole in the head nowadays? :'(

In Germany, there are so many pigeons gone astray. Basically, they are abandoned pets.
One of the human-caused "breeding successes" is, that this kind of pigeon breeds up to six times a year, no matter if there's food or not. So the population grows and grows, and they are hungry.

In some cities there are (finally!) animal-friendly solutions: they build pigeonries, where the pigeons get the right food and where they breed.
Helpers exchange the eggs for plaster eggs to control birth.
_____ _____ _____

Sorry for my harsh criticism, I don't want to offend anybody.
Maybe you are of a different opinion for several reasons.
This is only what I think about pigeon racing.

[Linda]

Nice portrait of this pigeon couple That is sad, I was hoping the banding was due to counting, tracking or something of that sort. We had pigeons on our farm when I was a child,more pets than anything else. Daddy let them live in his barn.

[Lastrami]

@grannysue Thank you for commenting, dear Linda. Sounds wonderful that you had pigeons around your home. A farm must be a great place for them to live. And also a great place to grow up :)
I'm almost sure this one was lost during a competition. The dark ring on the left has a microchip to verify the bird's identity - it is removable and they wear it only in competitions, as far as I know.

[Nina Ganci]

Lastrami, that is so sad. Never knew this about pigeon racing. It is horrible indeed. Am not sure if our country does have pigeon racing. I know of people that keep pigeons but not for racing