Guygar, thank you for your kindnesses! You and your wife sound like wonderful caring people.
Thank you thank you thank you. You’ve inspired me to help pigeons. I am in Rome currently and many pigeons are missing toes. I’d imagine it’s the same in other big cities. I want to find a way to help the ones whose feet and other body parts are are tangled in things and/or injured .Hey guys,
I came across this forum while I was looking for an Animal Rescue Centre in Rome Italy. I can't say I'm specifically a pigeon person but I am an animal and especially bird person.
I'm from Australia and am currently on holidays (honeymoon) in Rome and while i was visiting the baths of Caracalla (ancient roman ruins) the other day I saw a baby pigeon (too young to be out of the nest) on the ground being torn at by a hooded crow. I chased the crow off and I definitely didn't go into an out of bounds area to snatch up the little chick. When I had him i saw his beak and eye were all bloody and he couldn't walk on his right foot.
I was pretty upset and fearing the worst, so my wife and I packed him up into her backpack, and I slung it up baby bjorn style and we hurried out of the ruins in search of the nearest vet. It took us awhile to get there and in the end they couldn't help us but gave us the address and phone number of an organisation called LIPU.
We phoned but LIPU was shut at the time and so the pigeon had to come back to the hotel with us. We stopped at a supermarket on the way back to get a box and we put some tissues in to make him comfy. I cleaned up his eye and beak as best i could and we tried to make him comfortable but i didn't really expect him to make the night.
He was however still with us in the mourning and he was even looking a little bit better. His eye was gummed up with blood again but after I gently wiped that away he could finally open it up. I moved him out of his box to change the tissues and he even hobbled around a bit so I was hopeful his leg was only injured and not broken.
We packed him back up and ran him over to the animal shelter in a cab. They looked him over, felt his leg and listened to our story. They said it didn't seem as though any lasting damage had been done and that they would look after him until he was old enough to release.
I can't say how grateful we are to them for the work that they do. I wasn't sure we would find anyone to look after the little pigeon and when I first held him in my hands and looked at his bloodied face I thought the best that I might be able to do for him was find him a place to pass peacefully.
So the point of my post was really to just share the details of this organisation in case of the unlikely event someone else ends up in a similar situation. Also to give a bit of praise to a not for profit organisation doing some great work. Oh and maybe just to share a little bit of a lesson, that sometimes even when things seem like they won't work out they will so it's always worth trying and doing the best you can (a bit cliche i know).
Details then:
LIPU (Not for profit organisation)
Address: 2 Via Ulisse Aldrovandi, Rome, Italy
Phone: 06 320 1912
Website: Lipu, Lega italiana protezione uccelli - Lipu Onlus
Ending on a sad note today we found two pigeons near the Colosseum tangled together flapping and tumbling. The string which had been wrapped around ones legs had become wrapped around the others neck. I grabbed them as carefully as I could and between myself, my wife and two other kindly tourists we managed to sever the string between the two with a set of keys. Sadly the one with the string around its neck didn't survive.
When they were apart we could see that the surviving pigeons legs were tightly bound in string which we couldn't untangle.
So another pigeon in the bag, this time for a trip to the closest chemist (LIPU was already shut for the day). We purchased a pair of small scissors before heading back to the Colosseum to remove the string. It was a tightly tangled mess but it didn't seem to have cut into the skin. My wife and I got it all off in the end but it wasn't that we released the pigeon and it stumbled on one its legs that I realized it had injured itself in the tussle. It was off before I could grab it however. Not a happy day for me.
Anyway that's it, didn't mean to take up too much of your time, keep caring about and looking after wildlife guys.
How did you catch the pigeon or was it not moving?Thank you so much for posting this. I was searching the internet for a rescue I could take an injured pigeon to in Rome and thanks to your story I didn't spend long looking. LIPU took him in, looked at him immediately. Hopefully he will heal and fly again. Very best wishes.