Pigeons : the fascinating saga of the world's most revered and reviled bird
They have been worshipped as fertility goddesses and revered as symbols of peace. Domesticated since the dawn of man, they have been crucial to wartime communications for every major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United States and are credited with saving thousands of lives. One delivered the results of the first Olympics in 776B.C. and another brought the news of Napoleons defeat at Waterloo more than 2,500 years later. Charles Darwin relied heavily upon them to help formulate and support his theory of evolution. Yet the pigeon is reviled today as a rat with wings. How did we come to misunderstand one of mankinds most steadfast companions?
Print Book, English, 2007
University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld., 2007