61. Pigeons

Summary

The Economics of Everyday Things, Episode 61: Pigeons

Host: Zachary Crockett | Date: July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Zachary Crockett explores the fascinating—and often misunderstood—world of urban pigeons. Once revered for their intelligence, utility, and even heroism, pigeons are now largely seen as pests in modern cities. Crockett delves into their storied history, varied economic impacts (from racing to pest control), and the industry that has grown up around managing these resilient birds. His guests provide a memorable look at pigeons' place in our cities—and our imaginations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pigeons as Urban Pests

• Opening Story: Dave Champagne, owner of Bird Busters Incorporated, describes the challenges of pigeon control in San Francisco—especially in hard-to-clean places like church steeples.
  Quote (Dave Champagne, 01:13):
  “They're smart animals. You have something missing, a spike falls down...if you don't do something right, they find a breach, they will capitalize on it.”

• Feral pigeons number over 8 million in North American cities. Their acidic droppings cause significant property damage, and municipalities pay millions annually for control.

2. Pigeons: From Reverence to Revulsion

• Historical Perspective:
  Andrew Bleckman, journalist and author, points out the contrast in attitudes.
  Quote (Andrew Bleckman, 02:25):
  “It's really only in England and America that we see them as 'rats of the sky.' The reality is it's a very, very gentle creature.”

• Ancient Importance: Pigeons were domesticated over 10,000 years ago, used for food, fertilizer, and even worshipped as fertility symbols (03:18).

3. The Engineering and Economy of Carrier Pigeons

• Domestication and Utility: Ancient cultures bred pigeons for their homing ability.

• Notable Moment (Andrew Bleckman, 03:50):
  “They're extremely intelligent...Some of these pigeons can fly 600 to 1,000 miles away. They will hone in on their loft, literally like a laser guided missile from 1,000 miles away.”

• Communication Revolution:
  Paul Julius Reuter started his news service using pigeons to carry stock prices across a telegraph gap (05:04).

4. Pigeons in Warfare

• Heroic Deeds: Pigeons were key in wars from the Franco-Prussian War to WWII. The US maintained a pigeon corps that boasted a 95% success rate.

• Quote (Andrew Bleckman, 05:57):
  “Telegraph wires can get cut...Pigeons are the lowest tech you can use, and sometimes lowest tech is the best tech.”

• Famous Birds: Cher Ami and GI Joe are noted for saving soldiers' lives under extreme conditions (06:07–06:54).

• Recognition: Pigeons hold a record number of Dickin Awards—the highest honor for animal valor (07:09).

5. Modern Pigeon Economies: Racing and Beyond

• Pigeon Racing: Once a working-class hobby, now a high-stakes international business.

  • Chinese and Taiwanese buyers have pushed racing pigeon prices to over $1.9 million (08:28).
  • Winners’ “stud fees” for breeding can command hundreds of thousands (09:16).

• Support Industries: A specialized market provides grain mixes, supplements, and antibiotics—akin to elite human athletes' diets (09:28–09:54).

6. The Business of Bird Control

• Origins of Feral Populations:
  Rock doves arrived with European settlers, later escaping into cities where they thrived on “concrete cliffs” (13:12, 13:22).

• Why So Many Pigeons?

  • Adaptable, non-migratory, breed year-round, and eat nearly anything (13:35–14:07).
  • Large-scale human feeding—often illicit—contributes to population booms (14:07).

• Economic Impact:
  An estimate from 2000 puts U.S. pigeon-caused structural damage at over $1 billion annually (15:03).

• Bird Busters’ Approach:

  • From basic cleaning to high-tech deterrents, Champagne describes methods beyond extermination (16:01–21:08).
    • Netting for large areas (19:45)
    • Spikes and bird wire for ledges (20:09–20:18)
    • Low-voltage bird track devices for persistent roosts (20:31–20:46)

• Health and Lifestyle Concerns: Droppings corrode buildings and solar panels, can pose health risks, and noise can disrupt residents (17:03–17:57).

Memorable Quote:

“I do a billboard every six months now, and I've taken out 2,000 pounds of bird crap. And I swear, when I'm up there, this is what I think: I went to college for this.”
—Dave Champagne (10:19)

7. Attitudes Toward Pigeons

• Despite their nuisance status, both guests stress the bird's resilience and misunderstood nature.
  Quote (Andrew Bleckman, 21:26):
  “Why not see them as the whimsical happenstance in a concrete jungle?...They're tremendously docile creatures. They're tremendous athletes. I would just urge people to take a new look at them and see them for what they are: a winged creature that chooses to live amongst us.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• 01:42: “Once they find a place to live, they're not going to leave.” —Dave Champagne
• 03:03: “The white doves that are released at weddings are just pigeons that happen to be colored white.” —Andrew Bleckman
• 05:04: “That's literally how Reuter's news service began. It was on the backs of pigeons.” —Andrew Bleckman
• 07:44: Detailed description of modern pigeon racing, with 18-wheelers full of birds and computerized timing.
• 09:16: “The sperm of one of these racers can go for, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's big business.” —Andrew Bleckman
• 15:23: “Where I'm from, they just shoot them.” —Dave Champagne, on the rural attitude toward bird pests
• 21:08: “I think they're just trying to survive like everyone else.” —Dave Champagne

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Important Timestamps and Segments

• 01:13–02:25 — Introduction, contemporary pigeon problems, and their underestimated intelligence
• 03:03–03:50 — Pigeon history, domestication, and cultural significance
• 05:04–06:54 — Pigeons in communication and warfare; legendary birds
• 07:44–09:54 — Pigeon racing industry and supporting markets
• 13:12–15:03 — How America got so many pigeons; the billion-dollar annual cost of pigeon damage
• 15:40–21:13 — Inside the bird control business: techniques, challenges, and personal stories from Dave Champagne
• 21:26–21:55 — Final reflections on pigeons’ reputation and their place in human society

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Tone and Style Notes

• The episode has a wry, journalistic tone, blending data, history, and quirky anecdotes.
• Both Crockett and his guests approach the topic with curiosity and balance—respecting pigeons’ place in cities while recognizing the real challenges they pose.

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Additional Fun Fact (Post-Credits)

• 22:15: “Steroids are a problem in pigeon racing... that's a lot of breast meat.” —Andrew Bleckman (humorous aside about the professionalization of pigeon racing)

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This episode is a deep dive into the economics, history, and oddities of urban pigeons—revealing how human perceptions have shaped (and profited from) the enduring partnership between people and these surprising city-dwellers.

Transcript

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[Zachary Crockett]

On any given week, Dave Champagne can be found scouring the nooks and crannies of San Francisco in an effort to hunt down one of the city's most notorious pests.

[Dave Champagne]

The worst jobs are the church steeples. They're normally infested, and it's you got to suit up like a space suit to clean it. They're smart animals. You know you have something missing, a spike falls down. If you don't do something right, they find a breach, they will capitalize on it.

[Zachary Crockett]

Champagne doesn't deal with rats, squirrels or termites. He's the owner of a company called Bird Busters Incorporated, and one bird in particular makes up the bulk of his business.

[Dave Champagne]

Pigeons? Yeah, you think they're not too bright, but they're pretty tenacious considering they're still here. Once they find a place to live, they're not going to leave.

[Zachary Crockett]

It's estimated that there are more than 8 million pigeons living on the streets of North American cities. Most of them are concentrated in busy urban centers. They gather in enormous flocks in parks. They roost on roofs, in light wells and under bridges. And their acidic poop eats away at buildings, car paint and solar panels. Cities pay companies like Birdbusters millions of dollars a year to get rid of them. But before pigeons were a pest, they were celebrated and even worshiped.

[Andrew Bleckman]

It's really only in England and America that we see them as so called rats of the sky. The reality is that it's a very, very gentle creature. The only real problem is when there's just too many of them.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett today. Pig pigeons weren't always a nuisance. Most feral pigeons are descendants of the rock dove, a part of the columbidae family of birds. In fact, there's not much difference between a street pigeon and the most romantic bird on earth.

[Andrew Bleckman]

The white doves that are released at weddings are just pigeons that happen to be colored white.

[Zachary Crockett]

That's Andrew Bleckman. He's a journalist and the author of the book the fascinating saga of the world's most revered and reviled bird.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Pigeons have been worshipped since we've been Homo sapiens. They were seen as fertility goddesses. They're all through the bible.

[Zachary Crockett]

By most accounts, pigeons are the world's oldest domesticated bird. They were collected and trained as far back as 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Ancient Egyptians kept huge flocks of them for food and used their excrement to fertilize vegetables and fruit trees. But over time, humans discovered another use for the pigeon.

[Andrew Bleckman]

They're extremely intelligent. You train them as to where home is, and then you take them somewhere and then they'll go back home and you can tie a little message to their legs and they'll fly it back. Some of these pigeons can fly 600 to 1,000 miles away. They will hone in on their loft, literally like a laser guided missile from 1,000 miles away. And they'll go through without food, without water, they'll go through different weather.

[Zachary Crockett]

Pigeons can fly for up to 16 hours straight and hit speeds of 60 miles per hour. They couple this athleticism with an astonishing sense of direction that some scientists say stems from tiny bits of magnetite in their brains.

[Andrew Bleckman]

They use that to detect the earth's magnetic field. It's almost like they were designed perfectly to do this.

[Zachary Crockett]

In a way, they were. They were selectively bred over centuries to fly further distances and return home. And in the years before the widespread use of the telegraph, that wasn't just a parlor trick. In 1851, for instance, a German book publisher named Paul Julius Reuter used pigeons to deliver stock prices from Belgium to Germany a distance of 400 miles.

[Andrew Bleckman]

There was a telegraph wire that was laid between Brussels and Berlin, but there was a gap between in the Ardennes. And Reuters came up with the idea of filling it with pigeons. So he was the first one to get the news to Berlin, from Brussels, and from Brussels to Berlin. That's literally how Reuter's news service began. It was on the backs of pigeons.

[Zachary Crockett]

The pigeons talents were also put to use on the battlefield.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Every major superpower in all of world history utilized pigeons during The Franco Prussian War.

[Zachary Crockett]

In 1870, the French military used pigeons to send thousands of messages past enemy lines. By World War I, the US even had a dedicated pigeon corps that bred and trained the birds to deliver messages while under siege. By war's end, pigeons had a 95% success rate.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Telegraph wires can get cut, you know, wires can also be intercepted. Pigeons are the lowest tech you can use, and sometimes lowest tech is the best tech.

[Zachary Crockett]

Some pigeons exhibited legendary acts of valor. When Allied troops were surrounded by German soldiers during an attack in October 1918, they relied on a pigeon named Cher Ami to call for help. He was shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, and nearly lost his leg. But he managed to fly 25 miles back to headquarters in less than half an hour.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Cher Ami went through all the gunfire. All the guns were trained on it, and somehow he made it back, barely breathing.

[Zachary Crockett]

During World War II, the US used 54,000 war pigeons, including the legendary GI Joe. He delivered an order to call off the bombing of an Italian city, saving the lives of at least 1,000 allied troops.

[Andrew Bleckman]

What they performed were massive feats of heroism, and they saved tens of thousands of lives. You're talking people's sons, people's husbands, people's fathers who came home from the war thanks to, you know, like a three pound bird.

[Zachary Crockett]

When the Dickin Award, the highest honor for animals who served in the military, was created in 1943, the first three recipients were pigeons. Today, 75 of those medals have been awarded, and pigeons hold 32 of them. But pigeons don't just deliver things. The Coast Guard has enlisted them in search and rescue efforts. They've ferreted out defective drug capsules at pharmaceutical factories, and they've made a name for themselves as elite athletes in the sport of pigeon racing.

[Andrew Bleckman]

They're trucked out to a distant spot, and then they're released from these trucks that have these trapdoors that just open on both sides. I mean, and these are like 18 wheelers just filled with pigeons. So it's like a giant starting gate, and you'll have some kind of judge or witness to make sure it's done properly. There's one starting gate, but unlike a racetrack with the horses, they're flying all over the place to, like, endless finish lines, Rooftops all over Brooklyn, Queens, North Jersey, parts of Westchester. They hone in on their home loft, and they land. And then they're all wearing a special race bracelet across an ankle, and they're scanned in quickly, and it's all computerized, and then it's all sent to a central database.

[Zachary Crockett]

Pigeon racing first achieved popularity in Belgium toward the end of the 19th century. For a while, it was a popular sport for the working class. These days, it's less popular, but it has attracted a new demographic with much deeper pockets in China and Taiwan. In 2019, a top racing pigeon named Armando sold to a Chinese buyer for $1.4 million. That record was broken a few months later when the Belgian racer Nu Kim went for 1.9 million after a heated bidding war in Asia, prize pots for the largest pigeon races can reach into the tens of millions of dollars. And a champion pigeon can continue printing money even after its career is over.

[Andrew Bleckman]

The winners, I mean, they're studded out, essentially. So just like horses are, the sperm of one of these racers can go for, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's big business.

[Zachary Crockett]

There's a small but thriving economy that caters to the pigeon racing community, Selling natural grain mixes, supplements, and antibiotics.

[Andrew Bleckman]

You know, you're not going to feed an athlete Mac and cheese off of the supermarket shelf. I mean, there's endless formulas. They're looking for carbohydrate content, for protein content, for the highest source of a certain seed. All businesses have grown up around it.

[Zachary Crockett]

But today, the biggest industry around pigeons is the one trying to get rid of them. Around the world, cities have been plagued by millions of feral pigeons who roost in local businesses and cover sidewalks in acidic poop. So how exactly did pigeons go from fancy to feral? And what kind of work goes into reclaiming the city streets from these resilient birds?

[Dave Champagne]

I do a billboard every six months now, and I've taken out 2,000 pounds of bird crap. And I swear, when I'm up there, this is what I think. I went to college for this.

[Zachary Crockett]

That's coming up.

[Pacific Life Announcer]

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[Zachary Crockett]

Yeah, maxing is so maxing right now, bro. Get ready for spicy chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a 5.99 maxed out Double Stack Double Stack Double Stack Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 Double Stack Spicy Chicken chicken. This is unreal value in the brophe, bro. The new spicy chicken Max Wallet friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for limited time at participating restaurants. Taxon included. Not valid for use within a combo or a combination with any other offer discount. Pigeons are thought to have first arrived in America in the 1600s when European settlers brought rock doves over on ships as a source of food. But over time, many domestic pigeons escaped and became feral. These populations of wild pigeons increased dramatically in the first half of the 20th century when racing pigeons left rooftop coops in cities like New York for a life on the streets.

[Andrew Bleckman]

They love to be on cliffs. You will not see them in trees. Our cities are really just concrete mountains. You know, they're just concrete cliffs everywhere.

[Zachary Crockett]

Again, that's Andrew Blackman.

[Andrew Bleckman]

So that's why they're on our ledges, that's why they're on our bridge superstructures, that's why they're on the I beams. And the reality is, they like being around us.

[Zachary Crockett]

So why are there so many feral pigeons in places like San Francisco and New York City? Well, for starters, pigeons aren't migratory. When they're not made to deliver messages hundreds of miles away, they prefer to find a good ledge somewhere and settle down. They breed basically year round, have a fast reproduction cycle, and can survive on the streets for three to five years. They're also highly adaptable and eat just about anything humans discard. From pizza crust to fried chicken.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Every city will have the proverbial crazy older person who at three or four in the morning will go out into the streets when they're not being spotted and open up giant bags of feed, like 30, 40 pound bags of feed to feed their pigeons. And that will cause overbreeding, which actually stresses the population out.

[Zachary Crockett]

In some cities, it's now illegal to feed pigeons, but that hasn't stopped feral populations from thriving city dwellers either. Love them. Like Bert from Sesame Street. I love pigeons and I love how they walk. And I've created a really cool dance called doing the pigeon or hate them. Like the 1950s singer songwriter Tom Lehrer, all the world seems in tune on

[Andrew Bleckman]

a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

[Zachary Crockett]

One thing is certain. All of these pigeons can cause a lot of damage. An estimate from 2000 put total pigeon related structural damage in the US at over a billion dollars a year. That has spawned a big business for bird control professionals like Dave Champagne.

[Dave Champagne]

I'm from Louisiana originally, so I visit my cousin down there and they kind of laugh that I do bird stuff because where I'm from, they just shoot them.

[Zachary Crockett]

Champagne started his company, bird busters, nearly 30 years ago after noticing that the big pest control firms often didn't know how to deal with birds.

[Dave Champagne]

A lot of pest control companies aren't good at it because it's tricky. They like to spray and bait. That's the main money for those smaller companies, you know, the ones on the ground. We have to get up in the air. It's not easy, the stuff we do today.

[Zachary Crockett]

He helps businesses and cities across Northern California get rid of unwanted birds.

[Dave Champagne]

I work with everybody from the salesforce to, you know, Google to Amazon, all of them hire us. I've done bridges, freeways, the big billboards you see on the freeway. No one escapes a bird problem.

[Zachary Crockett]

Champagne deals with all kinds of flying creatures. Seagulls, owls, swallows, hawks. But he says around 60% of his business comes from pigeons, which like to roost in local businesses and private residences.

[Dave Champagne]

Most of the buildings we deal with, like Victorians, they love Victorians. I mean, there's nooks and crannies and little ornate balconies. We do a lot of light wells. It's like if you live in the city, you open up your bathroom windows. In an apartment, there's this shaft that goes down between the buildings. People open these windows and all of a sudden there's four or five birds that have been nesting there all winter.

[Zachary Crockett]

Clients call bird busters for a few reasons. For starters, pigeons produce a tremendous amount of poop. About 25 pounds per bird per year.

[Dave Champagne]

They caused a lot of structural damage when they sit in a spot and crap all day. And their poop is high in acidity and it will wreck a car paint job.

[Zachary Crockett]

Wow.

[Dave Champagne]

Sometimes it's just stains side to side of building, and I can scrub it and clean it and disinfect it, but the damage is done.

[Zachary Crockett]

This can especially be a problem for people with solar panels.

[Dave Champagne]

They're a perfect place for pigeons to nest under. I mean, they love them. And then what happens is the poop slopes downhill, it clogs the gutters up, and it starts to destroy the roof.

[Zachary Crockett]

Excessive pigeon droppings can also pose health hazards. Like any excrement, it's filled with fungi and bacteria that can be harmful if inhaled. Pigeon related infections in humans are pretty rare, but hospitals, private businesses, and cities don't want to take on that risk. And then there's the sound.

[Dave Champagne]

The sound they make, the harmonic. It vibrates through the house. They coo all morning long because they're hanging out, deciding what to do. And they normally go out and eat and party all day or loaf. They come back in the evening and they do the same thing. And people, it drives them crazy.

[Zachary Crockett]

When Champagne's team is called to a job, the first step is to get the pigeons out. And that part isn't too complicated.

[Dave Champagne]

You just chase them out. Pigeons are so chill. They never come at you. They don't attack anyone. They're puppy dogs. I mean, they just don't care.

[Zachary Crockett]

If you had a problem with pigeons 100 years ago, you'd just shoot them or kill them with poison pellets. Even today, there aren't any federal laws that prevent the slaughter of pigeons. The USDA labels them as an invasive species. And the Migratory bird Treaty act of 1918, which protects many species of native bird, does not apply to feral pigeons. But in most cities, including San Francisco, the pigeon control industry has shifted from killing pigeons to humanely removing them. The modern day focus is on moving pigeons elsewhere and preventing them from coming back.

[Dave Champagne]

The same birds will come back. It's crazy. They keep scoping out their old home. And I didn't believe that, but I've seen it so many times.

[Zachary Crockett]

There are dozens of companies with names like Bird Barrier, Bird Be Gone, and Bird X that manufacture and sell pigeon prevention products to guys like Champagne. The market is full of all kinds of devices. Sticky gels that smell like garlic, holographic prisms that reflect sunlight, and plastic decoy owls. Champagne uses different pigeon tools for different jobs. One of the most Popular options is netting.

[Dave Champagne]

That's a primary thing for loading docks, parking garages, big areas where you're just not going to chase the birds around. It's more cost effective because you could do a big area with, like, big pieces of net. We net the entire loading dock ceiling to where the birds can't land on any plate. They can't get up in the ductwork, the mechanical boxes. So basically, when they fly in, they hit the net, they bounce, they leave.

[Zachary Crockett]

For tall ledges, fire escapes, and rooftops, he'll employ rows of spikes or bird wire that make it hard for pigeons to land.

[Dave Champagne]

It's a thin wire that's coated, and what you do is you attach it to a post and then you run it to another post with a spring on it. So when the birds come in to land, they hit the wire and it bounces back. They can't grab onto the wire. It's too thin.

[Zachary Crockett]

One of his favorite pigeon prevention measures is something called the bird track.

[Dave Champagne]

If the birds land on it, every four seconds, it just sends a low, low, low voltage out that gives them a little zap. And I've not seen birds come back for a second try.

[Zachary Crockett]

For his services, champagne charges anywhere from around 600 bucks to six figures, depending on the complexity of the job. The pigeon removal business has put his three daughters through college, and it's afforded him a nice nest in the San Francisco suburbs. And even though he spends his days evicting pigeons, he has no beef with the birds.

[Dave Champagne]

I think they're just trying to survive like everyone else.

[Zachary Crockett]

Andrew blackman, the journalist who spent several years chronicling pigeons, understands the need for urban bird control. But he doesn't think that pigeons deserve the bad rap that they often get.

[Andrew Bleckman]

The way we look at pigeons is just unfair. Why not see them as the whimsical happenstance in a concrete jungle? They've been with us since the very beginning. They like being with us. They're incredibly docile creatures. They're tremendous athletes. I would just urge people to kind of take a new look at them and see them for what they are, which is just, you know, a winged creature that chooses to live amongst us.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the economics of everyday things, I'm Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by me and Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. We had help from Daniel Moritz Rapson.

[Andrew Bleckman]

Steroids are a problem in pigeon racing. So, yeah, I guess the only way to put it is, like, that's a lot of breast meat.

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[Zachary Crockett]

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