PIGEON TOES

How humble birds brave the city on bare feet.

- BY IAN FRAZIER

I hate how pigeons get stuff stuck on their feet. I see this problem in New York all the time, and it exists in cities around the world. It does not obsess me—I don't believe that people should become obsessed by things, in general—but, whenever I see it, it pains me. City pigeons have other foot problems, too. They get burns from landing on hot lighted signs, and injuries from close calls with vehicles and predators, and abrasions from jagged concrete, and diseases like bumblefoot, a bacterial infection that can cause their toes to curl up and fall off. Humans wear shoes, dogs sometimes sport booties on salt-covered winter sidewalks, N.Y.P.D. farriers replace the police horses’ shoes every four to six weeks, some pet stores even sell foot coverings for cats (which cats despise), but pigeons deal with the feet-unfriendly city barefoot.

The law intersects with pigeons at the legs. Officially, street pigeons are not vermin, like rats, another species of barefoot city dweller, with which they are often unfairly lumped. You can do anything you want to New York's rats, but you need a license to trap pigeons. If a pigeon belongs to somebody, the owner puts a band on the pigeon’s tarsus (the lower leg, just above the foot) to claim and identify it. Stricter laws dictate what is lawful and unlawful to do to a banded pigeon; it falls under society's extra protections, like any banded bird, or like a dog with a collar. But I have never seen a banded pigeon on the street. The pigeons standing in public spaces and flying around in transit terminals and other wide-open structures are like wild creatures living outside the law.