Are city pigeons safe to eat?

[RealMenJulienne]

"When you look at a pigeon, you might see a dirty, rat-like bird that fouls anything it touches with feathers or feces, but I see a waste-scavenging, protein-generating biomachine.... A food source that lives on our trash that is so reproductively prolific that we can’t kill it off? That’s green tech at its finest! Pigeons are direct waste-to-food converters, like edible protein weeds, that leave droppings that could be used as fertilizer as a bonus." - http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/200...

The author of the article eloquently makes a point which I have always thought about but never been able to put into words. Why don't we eat city pigeons? Most people would never consider it because we see pigeons eating out of trash cans and puddles of vomit but actually, does that not make them the perfect sustainable urban food source? A diet of garbage does not automatically mean foul meat; after all, the pig has served as a human-waste-to-protein recycler for all of history. And where would we be without tasty bottom feeders like shrimp, lobster, and catfish.

I grew up in Indiana, where country dwellers routinely shoot and eat the wild relatives of city pigeons. Roasted simply with some kind of fruit glaze, they are delicious, like a more savory version of chicken thigh. In Beijing where I am now, you can see here and there rooftop hutches where people raise pigeons for meat. I assume these birds have free reign of the city and return at feeding times. They are served fried with shatteringly crisp skin and a dipping bowl of seasoned salt., again, delicious.

Is there an actual reason not to eat city pigeons? Is the meat empirically hazardous aside from the emotional reaction of "it's dirty"? The article doesn't say and I'm curious if anyone here can supply one.

[jbsiegel]

This whole thread is making me cringe!!!! :-)

[soupkitten]

i was walking with several friends down a sidewalk (minneapolis). a wild dove flew right in front of us and smacked into a large window, breaking it's neck and falling to the pavement. my friend, an urban farmer, retrieved the body, i plucked it while the bird was still warm, and he ate it for supper. said it was very tasty.

[RealMenJulienne]

I commend your friend for his waste-not attitude. I have to ask though, did he suffer any gastrointestinal consequences afterward?

Also, how was it prepared?

[soupkitten]

i believe he wrapped it in bacon and roasted it with some mushrooms and whatever veg he was harvesting at the time. if he had any problems i didn't hear about them. fwiw this was a smaller songbird-dove, not a big pigeon. it was very small, just a few oz. and fitting into the palm of my hand.

[pamf]

Am I the only one who is amused that this topic is right next to a topic titled "Is finding quality ingredients a struggle where you live?" :)

[escargot3]

that's a great observation!

[beevod]

A friend of mine makes excellent stews using squirrels from Central Park

[RealMenJulienne]

How does he catch em? Snares perhaps?

[mattstolz]

im confused.

i always thought that pigeons=squab more or less, which is definitely edible. am i wrong here?

[mrbigshotno.1]

You're confused!

[buttertart]

A squab is a pigeon but a farmed one, raised (at least one hopes) on grain.

[Eldon Kreider]

A squab is a very young pigeon that has not flown yet, roughly a month old. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squab_%2...

[buttertart]

I didn't know they were so young.

[roxlet]

One day in Cairo, we rushed out after dinner leaving the large sliding window in the kitchen open. My son went to get something in the kitchen when we got home, and he rushed out saying that there was a pigeon in the kitchen. I told him to get the bowab, who came up, caught the pigeon, twisted its neck, and came out of the kitchen offering it to us. He was very excited when we refused it -- he had just caught dinner! Pigeon is the national dish of Cairo, and up and down the ALex Dessert Road, you see these pigeon farms with these white cathedral like structures where the pigeons roost and breed. They stuff the pigeon with some sort of rice mixture, and then eat the whole thing -- bones and all.

[buttertart]

Jeepers, bones and all? I love a nice squab but would not eat one from the street (unless in dire extremity).

[KaimukiMan]

fitly disease infested flying rats. crawling with lice and bird mites. No thanks.

[RealMenJulienne]

Hey, all wild game potentially have ticks, fleas, and worms. Doesn't mean they are transmissible to humans. And I would expect that bird parasites are way less transmissible than those of mammals like deer and wild pig.

[FoodFuser]

Roosting in rafters be the habit of pigeons,
just clucking and fluffing and shitting.
Far better just cook up a chicken.

[MRS]

I think it would certainly depend on where you live. There are some major cities that do "feed" the pigeons a form of birth control, so you might not want any of that in your system. You are what you eat could take on a whole new meaning?

[Veggo]

I suppose they are something of a 'tweener. If they were safe to eat, there would be fewer of them. If they were unsafe, there would be fewer street people.

[Breezychow]

I don't even like domestic-raised pigeons, but that said - even domestically-raised poultry contain pathogens easily transferred to humans. Wild pigeons? Uggghhh.

Go to it if you want, but I hope you have excellent health insurance. And be alerted that said health insurance may not cover you if they see that you purposely consumed something that is pretty much universally considered unedible.

[ipsedixit]

Probably no less safe than a sewer rat, or a possum.

[rusty_s]

Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't eat the filthy...

[Kellz]

I'd rather starve!

[drongo]

Take a look at this article: http://www.gourmet.com/food/2008/09/e...

To quote: 'But if pigeons are so tasty, why shouldn’t we all start feasting on the ones that fill our streets (and do our part for pigeon control)? Some Europeans did just that during the lean years of World War II, but under normal circumstances few people are tempted by city birds, and with good reason. Milt Friend, a wildlife expert from the National Wildlife Health Center, says that city pigeons are notorious for having large amounts of lead in their bodies. They accumulate lead not only by breathing polluted air, but also by ingesting everything from paint chips to roadside dust, which also includes such nasty stuff as cadmium particles from vehicle tires. (For this reason, the birds have been used to study environmental contaminants in cities.) While pigeons living in rural areas are fair game, Friend says, “I’d have to be awful hungry to eat a pigeon off the street.” '

[Bada Bing]

Yeah, I agree that a pigeon would be likely to eat chipped paint and especially pebbles from the roadside. They like little rocky/sandy stuff for their gizzard functions.

[Metatron]

I am not sure that industrially produced chickens or turkeys are that safe to eat either. They are force fed mystery food as well as copious amounts of pharmaceuticals and hormones to keep them healthy and fatten quickly. Some of the conditions they are raised under are pretty gross.

If one did a proper analysis, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that pigeons are actually healthier to eat. Or maybe not..

[mpjmph]

Chickens and turkeys produced in the US are not fed hormones.

ETA: there are plenty of reasons to think twice about consuming conventional, factory farm poultry, hormone use just isn't one of them.

[RealMenJulienne]

Thanks Drongo, can you post a link to the original source of that Friend quote? Maybe a published paper or something? I'm looking for hard scientific analysis here.

[drongo]

RMJ, the following is the reference that seems mostly widely cited. The journal's online archive doesn't go as far back as 1980, so if you want a copy of this paper you'll need to ask an academic library.

Hutton, M. and G. T. Goodman. 1980. Metal contamination of feral pigeons Columba livia from the London area: Part I—tissue accumulation of lead, cadmium, and zinc. Environmental Pollution 22: 207-217.

Edit: Here's a slightly more recent paper from the same journal: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/...

[Metatron]

I notice that the papers are fairly old ( 1980 and 1988 ). Probably a major source of lead was from leaded gasoline. As leaded gas has been phased out for some time, it may be that there will be less lead in the birds.

Newer studies may show different results.

[Veggo]

Less lead in birds... can they fly higher and farther now?

[drongo]

Yes, Metatron, that's a good point. Anyway, without new data I won't be trying those urban pigeons!

Veggo: lol, lol. Though even with the lead, pigeons were wonderful fliers (evolved to avoid the merlins perhaps?).

[Chefpaulo]

My first encounter with edible pigeons was in Luxor, Egypt. They were cage raised, grilled and superb. Its true that our city pigeons (technically Rock Doves) are almost identical but the quality of their intake would be of concern. But then, I've eaten bivalves in third world countries. Who knows what they've been recycling? My conclusion: just make sure its thoroughly cooked and don't ask.
CP

[Bada Bing]

It's an interesting question: here we have something that is free-range but also probably alarming to those who worry a lot about the feed that goes into their meats/poultry. I raised pigeons when I was young, and one thing I can say is that I can usually tell the difference between a healthy bird and one that is struggling with disease.

Just as a matter of theory, I'd regard eating city birds just as we think about eating fish species with some likelihood of mercury or other contaminents. A bird now and then will not hurt you, but bellying up to one twice a week for months gets iffy. But that's guesswork. Wouldn't be hard to test it empirically, but as long as killing the birds remains illegal, it's hard to se why that testing would happen.

p.s., I also raised a pair of domestic rats more recently with my son, and I can tell you they're smart, gentle (by far the best rodent to own), and cleaner than cats or dogs, which I also have had!

[RealMenJulienne]

Speaking as a non-scientist, the fish comparison seems reasonable. I am sure pigeons ingest a lot of toxic stuff in the city, but could that be offset by their relatively short lives? Kind of like how short-lived little fish like mackerel have a lot less mercury than long-lived big fish like tuna.

[mrbigshotno.1]

Don't do it, unless of course if it wouldn't bother you to eat a big fat wharf rat or a seagull that's been chowing down in a north Jersey landfill, than I guess it would be OK.

[coll]

I going to guess that there are laws prohibiting killing them? Especially if you were planning to shoot them like in the country. If I was starving, I'd do it no problem. They look plenty fat for sure. I have lots of Doomsday plans like that on the back burner!

I once had a friend visiting from Wyoming and I had to stop him from grabbing one of the geese swimming in the pond at a state park and wringing its neck, he couldn't believe how they just swam up to the boat.

[Querencia]

Ernest Hemingway told of how, in his hungry days in Paris, he seized and strangled a park pigeon and hid the body under blankets in his baby's pram.