EOTO Communication Tech Timeline

Carrier Pigeons

Carrier pigeons are such an oddly interesting topic. When I saw it on the timeline, I automatically gravitated toward this topic. I was interested to see what the jobs of these birds were, what events and situations they were used for, and why pigeons. I found out that the idea of carrier pigeons came from pigeons’ innate instinct to return home, no matter the conditions or distance traveled. They possess "compass sense" and "map sense." These senses make them the perfect messengers.

I remember the story of Noah and how he sent a dove to figure out if the land was dry enough to emerge from the ark. This story sort of triggered my thoughts on whether he was the first person to implement this idea. Although it is not exactly a messenger/carrier pigeon, the principle is very similar.

Throughout my research, I wanted to figure out who was one of the first to implement the use of carrier pigeons. And my research allowed me to see that Cyrus the Great was noted to be the first who implemented carrier pigeons. He used them to warn people in Mesopotamia. Julius Caesar also used carrier pigeons when conquering cities in war and battle. Merchants also use these animals as means of communicating with one another in foreign territory. Also, the ancient city of Rome used homing pigeons to let people know the winner of the Ancient Olympics. They would paint the bird the color of the team that the winner belonged to and send the birds to their hometowns.

They utilized these pigeons because they wanted their messages and mail to get to their destination faster. In certain situations, time is of the essence, and they want to maximize that time. They endeavored to cut down on the travel time of these messages and pigeons were the way to go. In times of war, time is not always on your side and many people realized that. These birds were critical in wars like the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Civil War, and even World War I. 

But in figuring out the whereabouts of this communication style, they came to realize that these birds only flew one way. So, the people began to put their food at one location and their nests at another to eliminate this issue. 

This idea changed our world because it was one of the first of its kind. It introduced the thought of expedient delivery of messages and mail which had never been done before. It allowed people to imagine what rapid delivery of messaging would be like. We even see the evolution of that idea even today.

Carrier pigeons were one of the first introductions to faster-delivered mail. This concept was later manifested in the Pony Express and email. The Pony Express was an express mail service that spanned 2000 miles across the country and delivered mail at more rapid speeds than before. Electronic mail was a ground-breaking alternative to paper mail that took days to arrive at your residence, versus the seconds or minutes for email delivery online.

     

But with all the positives of the carrier pigeons, there are some negatives as well. They began to carry diseases and spread them as they traveled to different places. Unfortunately, the pigeons’ bodies rejected the antibiotics used to treat these diseases. Sickness became one factor in the elimination of carrier pigeons as means of communication. But another factor was that they were targets for hunters. Hunters would stay near the nesting spots and when the birds would come to nest, they would shoot and kill them.

All in all, carrier pigeons are an interesting topic to investigate and look into. I enjoyed seeing how this form of communication jumpstarted a trend for convenience and more efficient messaging for various situations and circumstances.