For some people, it’s easy to think of pigeons as a nuisance. They live their lives around us humans, sometimes leaving messes in spots on rooftops and under utility lines where they like to congregate. Other folks love pigeons and feed them daily, even distinguishing among individuals and giving them names.

From ancient texts we know that pigeons, or what are now more properly and formally called rock pigeons, began to be domesticated by humans more than 5,000 years ago. Since that time there have been three types of rock pigeons around the world: wild rock pigeons, domesticated rock pigeons, and escaped domesticated rock pigeons that have become self-sustaining feral populations.  There are, of course, lots of other species of pigeons and doves throughout the globe—more than 300 different species, in fact. A number of others are kept in captivity and some of these have established feral populations in parts of the world. The Eurasian collared-dove is one that is now a resident in much of the southern and western U.S. after birds spread to Florida in the 1980s from a feral population in the Bahamas. African collared-dove, also known as the ringed turtle-dove, is another species that has been domesticated for hundreds of years and has established some feral populations in some cities in the southern U.S. The spotted dove, a popular game bird in Asia, was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands in the late 1800s and into southern California in the early 1900; feral populations are present in both areas today.

But rock pigeons are still the most widespread, globally, and the most well-known of the pigeons and doves that live close to humans. Although the long history of domestication of rock pigeons makes it harder to tell its original native range, the range of wild non-feral rock pigeon (these nest on cliffs instead of buildings and bridges as do feral populations) extends from southern Europe through northern Africa and west through the Middle East and in Asia to India and western China. Populations that nest on the cliffs of Scotland and Ireland are also thought to be of the wild non-feral rock pigeon variety. In cities and towns in much of this area, there are feral populations of rock pigeons descended from escaped domestic varieties.

What is quite amazing to consider is that the feral rock pigeons that we see in our cities and towns here in Maine probably originated from escaped domesticated pigeons that the early colonists brought over with them to raise for food. The earliest mention of colonists arriving with pigeons is from the French colony at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1606. The French also did some colonizing around this time in Maine in the St. Croix River (a failed settlement) and on Mount Desert Island. Domesticated pigeons were coming across to the English Massachusetts colony by the mid-1600s as well, and probably more continued to come for the next 100+ years. As more pigeons became feral around established settlements where they could find food and that had buildings where they could build their nests, eventually self-sustaining populations developed.

Those pigeons pecking for bread at your feet in the park, cooing loudly from the rooftop of a downtown business, and wildly flapping up in alarm at the passing of a hawk, are hardy survivors. If pigeons were people, their names would probably be memorialized in the towns, streets, and monuments, the way those of early colonists are today.

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists, and author of Birder’s Conservation Handbook.  His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a statewide nonprofit membership organization working to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and coauthors of the book, “Maine’s Favorite Birds.”