Feral pigeon experiment--Conditionfreak

[RodSD]

I finally found a study that answers Conditionfreak's questions about homing ability of ferals as well as their speed.

Here is the link:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...nk&cd=21&gl=us

This should shut off any confusion.
"
Approximately 50% of the purebred feral pigeons did not find their way home from distances over 5 kms, and the 40 km distance is so great for them that every pigeon will get lost. In order for a young pigeon to find its way home from a distance of 100 kms, a minimum of 75% homer gene proportion is needed. The flight speed of the populations with a 100-75-50-25% feral pigeon gene proportion does not reach even the half of the purebred homer pigeons’ performance (104 m/min and 215 m/min) within the distance where most of the stocks still find their way home (5 kms).

Considering the mean performance in homing speed attained in the test flights between 50-160 km distances the population having 75% homing pigeon gene proportion was still far behind the purebred homers in flying speed (241 vs. 720 m/min).

At the same time 58% of the former and only 8% of the latter group was lost during the test flights. "

I told you that someone already performed this experiment.

Rod

[Charis]

LOL...Well...they are just plain wrong!
Personally, I think some people may want to think of them as inferior because that way...it's easier to eliminate Feral Pigeons.

[spirit wings]

I don't know KM's.... 5 km? is that what, 4 miles?.....anyway, I don't think of them as inferior, they are just wild pigeons and not domestic homers, it's like comparing apples and oranges. I would hope that people that keep homers are not so far removed that they can't appreciate feral pigeons....I have not seen that with keepers of homers........yet

[george simon]

First I feel that this experment was not meant to picture the feral as inferior but rather to find out if wild pigeons have racing and homing abilty. We here often become defensive for our feral friends and rightly so.Try to find some thing good in this experment. The thing that I see from this experment is when we release a feral that has been rehabed we must release as close to where the bird was pick up in the first place. I know that many rehabers do this already,but there many kind people that would releace these birds that they helped miles away thus hindering the bird in trying to find its mate/nest or even their young. Just think about this there is another side here. We all know that when a race bird is lost they have a differecult time in the wild as they are not street wise like our feral birds so you see there are two sides to this experment even if only one side is shownGEORGE

[Pegasus]

RodSD, why did you start this again LOL ...Do I have to conclude my thoughts about this one...You are making me laugh...Man oh man, sometimes too much educations make ME dumb...

[feralpigeon]

It's difficult to take this article seriously and trust that a person who hasn't taken the time to check their spelling and grammar has taken the time to follow
true clinical/scientific procedures for collecting and collating pertinent data.
Even the concept of a "purebred" feral boggles the mind....it's like discussing a pure bred mongrel dog, lol.

Without the author detailing control methods for the experiment that was
performed, there is no way of evaluating the legitimacy of what claims are
being made for the results of said "study". It is just an individual making assertions and claims that remain unsubstantiated scientifically.

I can say w/certainty that I know of a feral pigeon that flew approximately 40.2325km after a Vet released the pigeon from rehab in order to return to their home.

fp

[LokotaLoft]

this thread makes my head hurt

[RodSD]

You guys are funny! If you read the paper there was no intention of putting down the abilities of ferals, but rather to figure out their maximum homing abilities as well as their flight speed. This paper is a dissertation to get PhD. Getting one is hard. It will take another 4 years of study after college just to get one and that professors will decide whether to give you one.

Going back to the experiment, the controls are real homing pigeons which he got from real champion breeders who actually race. He did not just compare the ferals against homer, but also against crossbreed where he mated ferals and homers together. I read that article 3 times and the more you read you will understand better. He collected his ferals among roof houses or attics. He intentionally decided not to do any selection, but just get any there that he found.

He also concluded that young birds don't have the same homing abilities and speed compared to older birds. Older birds (1 year older and greater) have greater homing ability and faster. He found more data like inbreeding reduces performance at certain distance. I believe this was a 3 year experiment. That kind of makes sense assuming that he got his degree in 4 years.

His studies are convincing because his results supported other scientists' previous results. The problem I can think of is that some data are missing. It has missing tables and graphs, etc. He used statistics to compare results. I am not defending him obviously, but usually professors will not give you PhD or MS degree if your experiments are not convincing. I know this because I worked with PhD candidate as well as with 2 MS candidate before. There was an incident where a Master candidate killed his 3 professors because they wont give him his MS. His professors don't find his experiment/claims convincing so he went haywire.

I believe the paper was from Hungrary. It could have been translated to English so that others can read. Unfortunately there was not that good editing.

I opened this can of worm not start a useless argument again. I rather have claims that have facts to back it up. I also like university studies partly because reputation is very important in that field. Usually you are dealing with people that are smarter than you and can pinpoint right away if you know what you are talking about. And yes they use statistics to eliminate any exceptions to the rule.

I am nerd. Haven't you guys discovered that one yet?

[Grimaldy]

Hi RodS,

Actually the paper proves the obvious, but it lays to rest the anecdotal evidence, that is for sure.

Feral must devote every waking hour to survival, foraging for food, shelter, avoiding predators, humans, and trying to mate and reproduce. Of necessity that requires that they pool their efforts in forming flocks which cooperate in varying degrees and stay relatively close to food, shelter and safety. Domestics on the other hand have none of those problems to deal with. They are given highly nutritious food, vitamins, clean warm shelter, medical care whether they like it or not, healthy controlled exercise, etc. About all that is left for them to do is reproduce, and that is manipulated to teach them to find home. After several generations of breeding of that kind you would expect to get a sort of an avian athlete. In a feral on the other hand you would expect to get a gritty down to earth survivor.

If the dissertation author wanted to make his comparisons fair, he should release some domestics into a few feral flocks and see how many of them survive the first week, month and year. But all in all, not a bad paper. It was obviously written in Hungarian and badly translated. When he talks of "pure bred ferals" he is trying to distinguish the ferals which have interbred with the domestics from those which have not.

Conditionfreak on the other hand was talking about behavior, not breeding, as the factor he was curious about. Personally I can't imagine any pigeon breeder that is going to allow his birds anywhere near ferals for any purpose, much less testing them in some sort of a half-baked experiment. Which leads me to the conclusion his article was all smoke.

[RodSD]

I think the paper did not try to answer the hardiness of pigeons. So he didn't do that kind of experiment. He was, I believe, trying to answer 4 questions.

I do agree that the paper proves the obvious. It is just more believable because he did the experiments and used statistics. And I suppose it was refereed work as well.

Homers that we have is a human breed. So their selection process is different. Because we release them at far distance and breed those that make it, we created a bird that is like a "marathon in the sky."

I think Conditionfreak wanted to know the homing ability and speed of ferals compared to homers. The paper points him into a right direction. He also wanted to know the hardiness of ferals and homers. The paper didn't answer that question. The paper, however, pointed out that inbreeding causes more loss of baby birds compared to cross-breeds one.

I hope this thread will continue civil so that it wont get locked.

[TAWhatley]

I appreciate the posting of the link to this dissertation and do also believe that a lot was lost in the translation into English.

For any serious students of feral pigeons, this is an excellent reference: http://www.amazon.com/Feral-Pigeons-.../dp/0195084098

It's very pricey, but is full of "hard science" about these birds. I was fortunate enough to be given a copy of this book by a member here who is not a frequent or recent poster.

Terry

[John_D]

Something I find interesting about the whole homing ability thing is that wild rock doves don't have the kind of lifestyle where they would even need it much. They don't migrate, and they tend to nest, roost and forage within a quite limited area of a few square miles. Ferals, obviously, have the same characteristics, so finding their way back from someplace to where they've been unnaturally removed is bound to be a pretty hit and miss affair.

John

[Grimaldy]

One of the peculiarities of the rock dove was and I suppose still is, its ability to find land when out over a body of water. Supposedly, before the magnetic compass was known, sailing ships had to keep in sight of land to avoid being lost. The story is that they always carried a few rock doves on board so that if they lost sight of land they could release a few and watch the direction they took. Assuming the birds just did not fly high enough to gain sight of land and then proceed off in that direction, the story if true suggests that pigeons have some innate ability to orient themselves. As anecdotal evidence it certainly explains the story of Noah and the ark and his releasing doves (rock doves) to find land.

I have noticed when I recover lost homing pigeons and get them back on their feet, at the time of release they will look out at the sun, look around to the south, never the north, back to the sun and then take off in a straight line. That occurs usually after a few days or so in a cage with no exposure to the sun at all and the direction of flight is invariably never in the direction where they were found.

[Charis]

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f23/ho...ome-32176.html

[Lovebirds]

Originally Posted by John_D

Something I find interesting about the whole homing ability thing is that wild rock doves don't have the kind of lifestyle where they would even need it much. They don't migrate, and they tend to nest, roost and forage within a quite limited area of a few square miles. Ferals, obviously, have the same characteristics, so finding their way back from someplace to where they've been unnaturally removed is bound to be a pretty hit and miss affair.

John

It's true that ferals may not really NEED the homing ability, but I think they have it anyway to some extent. Our racing pigeons learn a limited area also when they are babies and first start flying. However, none of us actually "train" them out to the race stations........especially the ones that are 300, 400, 500 or even more miles away. They just "know" how to get home.
There's also a difference in "migrating" and "homing"..........I can drive from point A to point B and back to point A..........however, if you put me in a box and take me 100 miles from home and drop me off........well, let's just say I'd be a goner I guess..........