# Misleading and harmful images of pigeons...please protest



## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

*Misleading and harmful images of racing pigeons...please protest*

This is a link to a BBC news article about the possible avian flu pandemic. They have chosen to use racing pigeons as an illustration!  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4292426.stm 

Cynthia


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Eeeeeesh, the BBC is not very reliable as for accuracy, and of course, ethics in journalism.

I will e-mail them for all the good it will do to see if they may wish to ammend their error.

Like any emotion salesman, they pretend that it is about information.

How disappointing...

60 people purportedly deceased from the Avian 'flu.

One one hundreth of what have been lost from aspirin oversose or something in the same time period.

One one hundreth of how many murdered in say, ohhh, detroit, in the same time period...

One one hundreth of how many die from bacteria in having eaten comercial poultry in the same time period...

..on and on...

BBC...


If this 'flu does become an epidemic, it will not be because 'Birds' have transmitted it to people, but, because people have transmitted it to people.


Poor, very poor quality of information...


Phil
Las Vegas


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

I'm afraid people are going to panic and look at all birds as a threat, especially pigeons... and in their haste want to destroy them. 

Pigeons are not carriers of this disease and they don't get it.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

> I'm afraid people are going to panic and look at all birds as a threat, especially pigeons... and in their haste want to destroy them.


That is my great fear too. Already they have started an anti pigeon campaign in my city, this will fuel the antipathy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4286370.stm 

these are my babies that are at risk if they decide to cull (and that is a possibility), one I have watched over for nearly six years. I am trying to get my facts together and put them forward in a persuasive manner. The sprouting barley info will help.

Cynthia


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

I know how you feel, it is time to put the word out about controlling the population with humane methods like barley or removing eggs and replacing them with dummies, in allowed areas for pigeon breeding.

The spikes and stopping feeding is wrong! 

The amount of money they will spend they could better use to hire you, Cynthia, to do the job in a humane way. You are the expert on feral pigeons and care and their habitat and they would be better listening to you as the problem can be simply resolved going with nature, instead of against.

Then you could be in charge of setting up designated areas for feeding and breeding areas where eggs can be removed. Any birds injured you can treat, and have proper housing for rehabilitation. They should provide you with your own house on the property designated and give you a nice wage. You should be able to hire another person or two as needed, that the city would also pay for.

See...that was simple....too bad they think they know better!


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## Maggie-NC (Jun 22, 2005)

This morning, on our local news, they mentioned the bird flu and how over one million people could die from it and that it could begin anytime now. Of course, my first thought went to our pigeons and wondered if our neighbors may start thinking they could pass it on, even though they are never let out, much less that they are not carriers..

The news media will go to any lengths to get a story and then run it in the ground, not caring if they have the right facts. This flu business is scary to all of us but they need to get their facts straight. All birds, not just pigeons, have it so tough to survive under the best conditions. Will they start killing robins, bluebirds, jays, sparrows, etc.? 

maggie


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## Wendigo (Sep 23, 2005)

*Flu*

What people need to understand is this whole thing got started because, China and other countries started packing meat birds into a very tight confined space. Which is very unsantary the birds couldn't even move. So what happens when you do this well we all know the anwser to that. The main thing to rember is 
WE DO NOT as a country keep are birds like that our birds aren't affected. I had some old lady come to a barn sale at my house and say Oh you have chickens aren't you worried about the flu? I told her that it wasn't a proplem in this country and she shouldn't worry about the farmer because of the way we keep our birds. My own husband got all worried about it because I raised Asian fowl. The birds that got this were meat chickens not the Asian jungle fowl. Thailand has a lot of chickens that people keep for worship they don't have it because they run free through the villages. So there is a lot of panniced people out there my plan is to explain it one person at a time if I have to. Just keep telling people that ask the real story.


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

Wendigo said:


> What people need to understand is this whole thing got started because, China and other countries started packing meat birds into a very tight confined space. Which is very unsantary the birds couldn't even move.
> WE DO NOT as a country keep are birds like that our birds aren't affected. .



Hi Wendigo, 

No offense to you or the USA but there certainly are very many such chicken farms in the United States where they are cramed into impossibly small spaces. These birds live their whole lives in battery cages or crowded all together with no room to move. 

The one difference is that modern, industrialized countries (such as the USA) are better at using medications to control disease outbreaks, and will vaccinate birds to prevent known problems. 

The truth is however, one of these pandemics could realistically surface in any country at any time. Not everyone's standards or level of carefullness are the same whether it's a huge corporation or a "ma & pa" run business. It only takes one time for something like this to get out of hand. Diseases are so easily spread and very quickly. With viruses and flus, they are bridging the species barriers at an alarming rate. Animals and humans are so closely involved all over the world, it's bound to happen and it's a questions of "when", not "if".


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## NumberNine (Jul 19, 2005)

In Europe, they have been experimenting with a drug, which they mix with pigeon food. It makes the egg shell soft, the eggs usually break while the pigeon is sitting on it and therefore, no additional pigeon.

I don't know what is the current status of that drug. This information is 3-5 years old. I read about it.

In Asia, you can eat absolutely any animals. Cats, dogs, pigeons and sparrows are easily found in China. With its 1 billion plus population, any food is ok.

The picture in the article comes from Asia. And I suspect that the blue cages in the background are actually on a bicycle and the pigeons he is holding are for sale, to be eaten. 

In the USA alone, we kill 500,000 chickens every single day of the year.


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

Hi numbernine, 

Very good points and observations. I really feel that diseases are out of the control of man for the most part. We do our best to prevent and avert problems but we are fighting a losing battle with organisms that are billions of years old.

We are infantile in our knowledge of viruses, bacteria and "bugs" for the most part concering animals. These pathogens are masters at adapting, changing and evolving to suit their needs and this will likely be our life lesson from our "greed". With all things on this planet we humans exploit, use and think very little of, I'm really not surprised of the after effects and how they have already come to pass

I read all the time as well about medications, drugs and the large corporations that dont' want us to know all the facts...I believe this as well. I think that there have been breakthroughs, cures and natural remedies have been utilized with both humans and animals but the governments of the world don't want us to know this. It would ruin "business" and thus are silenced

So many points to make here really...


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

Treesa, that is a great idea! 

There's one city in the UK where, in fact, they did have a fulltime 'pigeon warden', but I think local politics got in the way.

John


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

John_D said:


> There's one city in the UK where, in fact, they did have a fulltime 'pigeon warden', but I think local politics got in the way.
> John


Such a shame, that the real experts don't have a chance, unless you have friends in politics.


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## Geranyl (May 13, 2004)

Just a little note about how avian flu (in other words virulent strains of flu) develop. It's not because of the bird crowding in China, it is rather the fact that pigs, birds, and humans live in close crowded quarters. We do not have such farming practices here. Anyway, the pig serves as a go between the birds and the human. Flu virus from humans and flu virus from birds mix in the pig and recombine. So in a sense think of the pig as the mixing pot, and whatever jumps out can infect us, whereas the original virus in the bird could not.


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## bartuska (Apr 20, 2005)

I have been working in the medical field as a physician assistant in the Emergency and Urgent Care area for the past 14 years. This avian flu business has us all pretty freaked right now and poses a real threat to all of us. Time will tell as it mutates to be able to jump from human to human --and no human has ever been exposed to this virus so our immune systems will be challenged to say the least. 
Anyway, so far the ol' pigeon is completely resistant and we have to be sure we spread this fact. See www.avian-influenza.com and they have an abstract of pigeons and the influenza. They have tried every which way to infect these birds and they plain and simply DON'T GET IT!
Run a copy of this page off and show it to any of your concerned neighbors and friends. 
Who knows, in the end, the pigeon may be to the avian influenza what the cow was to small pox. Maybe they have the answer in them somewhere on how to combat this thing--and maybe, just maybe, our immune systems will have an advantage being around them--who knows??? 
In the meantime, arm yourselves with knowledge and spread the word about our avian friends!!!


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi all...


What a mess...

One link of possible interest, I just scanned it, but it looked decent -

I had some really good 'inside-dope' of some true Virology science sites saved, but lost them recently in some computer re-installs...but, anyway, see...



http://www.recombinomics.com/News/05190503/H5N1_H2H_Transmission_Thailand.html


Anyway, as an above post mentions, not-so-dear red china and the rest of the heartless, industrialized/factory animal processing charm schools of the u.s. and europe and so on, breed new combinants of virus very well.

The real factor here is two fold - One: too many harried, stupid, cyical, coerced by circumstance, trying to 'get by' people. Two: bad, cynical heartless greed-based inured ot Humanity otherwise of practices of coercive occupation, acquiescece, and money getting and economic slavery to corporations and organizations and governments and in essense, to the money getting of those one works for, as in effect, just one more 'factory raised hominid' chattel.

Some (real) 'experts' have mentioned how in theory, or so far, the particular strain of interest has a human mortality rate of one in five. So, kind-of "in theory" this could mean that one in five people could or would die in a pandemic.

But, virus in pandemics do not remain stable, and instead tend to mutate or change, so that, moreso, "in theory", there would be, at worst, a steep mortality rate initially, then a steep fall-off as the virus learns not to kill the hosts they are acquiescing to inhabit.

Worldwide, something onto 40 million people died in the "1918" Influenza pandemic, if mempry serve.

The transmission of concern would not be Bird-to-human but human-to-human anyway, and, given that humans bred and breed these virus in an incidental careless cynical way in these factory animal processing facilities in the first place, or breed them intentionally in government sponsored and private contractor bio-warfare research and developement facilities...where is the censure there?

However is one know "where" such a virus hath 'come from' anyway, really?

I personally would be delighted to see "one in five" of the global human population decease. I would be delighted if it was 99 out of every 100 that deceased for that matter.

Oh well, it is not up to me! Lol...and sigh...


Now, media and government disinfo IS carefully and slyly by method and practice, quite pleased for people to begin to feel hysterically threatened BY "Birds" and a lot of talk has been on going about massive PRE-EMPTIVE slaughters of Birds of all kinds.

The Poultry Lobbies do not have as much 'juice' say, as many other interests do. And besides, they would get re-embursed with taxpayer ( chattel slave) money or debt-indenture imposed on serfs anyway, in the event of a loss of their 'foul populations'.

There is talk in our goverment also about our military and industrial contractor assets being deployed to "pre-emptively" start slaughtering the domestic AND wild Bird populations of other Nations.

The real problem here is how people, in overly dense population groups, organise themselves into hierarchies of exploitation and dominance...then adapt to that as if there was nothing else TO be lived.

This light will not tend to be shone on the issue of course, (or on any issue, ) and so far, "Birds" will be the fall-guy...they will be the 'patsy'.

I all likelyhood, nothing much will come of this so called Bird 'flu anyway, or, maybe, there will be a mild pandemic of some kind, of it, or of some Swine 'flu or Dog 'flu or place-name 'flu or other 'flu.

Millios of hominnids die routinely every year from schistosomiasis...millions die routinely from each of many other nasty diseases which get little or no attention. But, they are not people we tend to know, and are not well onncested ot inhabiting the industrialized nations.

And, so what?

What does any of this 'really' mean?

What are these issues about, really?

Open questions...

And, if we DO have an epidemic or a pandemic of some kind of 'flu, it will be people-to-people transmission which will effect the mischiefs of it's spread.

Pandemics of SOME 'flu are circumstantially an inevitability now with SO many billions of people and SO much travel of them to everywhere constantly.

This IS 'asking for trouble' in that regard.

But will anyone "pre-emtively' start slaughtering hundreds of millions of useless domseticated chattel slave factory raised hominids?

Prolly not...at least not for this.

This is called cognitive dissonance...

...among other things...



This turned out to be kind of an Editorial!

Lol...

Morning coffee, "Office Birds" grazing gently, here and there the soft xipping soud of preening...the sounds of traffic from the street...and me soon to stand up, go out, and get something done as for 'getting by'...


Love,

Phil
Las Vegas


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## bartuska (Apr 20, 2005)

Phil you are one interesting guy and you have got some great points.
My personal beliefs lie in the great mother nature and if this virus is a human "herd thinning" so be it--it would just suck if it turns out to thin away my family--but I (we) are all part of it and no one of more "special" than the other in cases like this. 
Unfortunately, the average human loves to find the person, or thing who is "at fault" for such catastrophies and our bird friends may get the brunt of it here. Pandemics are apart of nature--scary and horrible as it may sound, but they've been around forever--in all species. We've managed to ward off a few in the past decades--but we won't be able to forever. 
Yeah, don't get me going on the meat eaters of the world--that is another subject. (my whole family is vegetarian, too--and the pigeons like it taht way  )


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Catherine,


What drives me to tears sometimes, are all the brave, succinct, clear headed, and scientifically correct and comprehensible work and pioneering that was done and culminating say around a Century ago, in which it was patently obvious that an unrestricted, indescerning, indescriminate welcome of anyone to any shore is suicide as for dissease prospects and contaigen in the host populations.

Basic hygene, observations of regimen and praxis in hospitals, all of it, has declined horribly to favor stock holders assertions and hireings of C.E.O.s to make money for them at any 'cost' otherwise.

A pandemic of the despicible...endless millions of 'success' stories and approveing parents, wives and friends...horror...de-evolution...a landscape of nightmare and sleep walkers innured and oblivious...

Many people naively suppose, and 'business' interests demand, this unrestricted movement of peoples everywhere to mix in other populations.

Leaving aside for now, many other factors...

Now, where so many 'old' maladys HAD been eradicated in the U.S., we now are getting Scarlet Fever, Whooping Caugh, Diptheria, various kinds of Measles, Mumps, striins of gonorhea, syphylils, clamidia, Brain 'worms', Liver flukes, new and other than endemic visceral larval migrans and parasites...on and on and on from the not so cheery climes of the third world and elsewhere, 'nafta' and veggies costing four times what they did previous with human excrement clinging to them full of 'worm' eggs...millions of people now in the u.s. are getting diseases and parasites that were unhead of here for centuries..

Where no such progress in hygene and praxis as had been made, is a component of the respective Culture's mores or interests to effect.

The parabola of what might reasonably have been called the direction of 'Progress' of the aspireations of Civilization, as distinct from the drift of amentia and corruption chattel-society's hierarchies, and regressions and decadances on other fronts, has had had it's tensions and waxes and waneings it seems...

The "CDC" had it's teeth pulled and became another mere political 'yes man' sham...as is the F.D.A., as is all of it anymore...lackies of big business and short sighted profit.

I myself feel profoundly disappointed at the level of mere cultural introjections or banal socializations, supplanting what one might conjecture to have been Conscience.

The 'cannibal chimp' seems to have been all too tenatiously effective at rallying the like-minded lessers of it's kind.

Human Beings 'as such' are not well represented...

The implicit promise in potetial of what our species and societies 'could' have been, is betrayed ubiquitously and thoroughly in present constellations and internalizations of (innurements to ) social 'reality', and of course cumulatively as geo-politics...and it is a 'disease' of import far far more than any 'flu is, to my thinking anyway.

This has vexed me since I were fist forced to 'go' ( be sent ) to 'school'.

To be processed in a factory-institution to be dehumanized and made stupid.

I am almost old now, and it weighs on me no more, and no less than it did when I was six. It just weighs differently, if maybe less vividly than 'then'.

Oh well...

What a shame...!

Not the 'world' I wanted or expected...

Phil
Las Vegas


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## NumberNine (Jul 19, 2005)

*For better or for worst*

The future of this planet is pretty grim. We are all on the "Titanic". Within the next 100 years or so, about 70% to 90% of the world population should be gone. And for the 10% - 30% left behind, life won't be much fun. It has happened before and will happen again. 

The main problem is that most people see death as the ultimate end. The truth is that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. And not the other way around. You have been here before and will come back.

Everything in the universe is energy. "Life" on earth is a school. You are here to learn, to grow. You do not learn, nor achieve anything through what is easy. 

The main differences between humans and animals are: 1) Humans have an individual soul at birth, while animals have a "collective" soul. If you create a bond with an animal, you are raising its level of consciousness and therefore, creating an individuality. It will be waiting for you when you switch to the other side. If an animal remains wild during all its life, then at death, the soul returns to what I call a "pool of souls". Please note that soul has no religious connotation. It is merely the expression of a finite amount of energy.

And 2) animals were put on this planet for us to take care. Not to exploit, mistreat or eat. It was kind of a test. Our evolution and achieving higher level of consciousness is dependent upon animals reaching a higher level of consciousness. No need to tell you that we have completely failed in regards to animals.

One of the laws of the Universe is that nothing happens without a reason. Absolutely nothing. You are responsible for all your actions. And you do have to pay your debts. Some you will pay while you are in this body, others you will pay next time you are back. There is no free lunch.

Sometimes I think that I should keep my knowledge to myself.


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## bartuska (Apr 20, 2005)

Numbernine,
I think most of us have the same sort of feelings and ideas you do--in some form or another--most people who love animals do --if you can get them to admit it!


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

We are 'Animals' - we are domesticated primates.

The sooner we realize that, the sooner we may find approximately correct humilities and demystifications of dogma and innurement, and, discover m-a-y-b-e, some measure of discernment in how we 'see', so what-we-see has some perspective founded in something better than bad hear-say of elder or progenitor schmoosers and herd-managers.

The 'road to hell' was never paved with 'good intentions'...is is/was paved with inconvenient facts and avoided issues...

(That last sentence, being roughly a paraphrase of something Talbot Mundy wrote in like 1908...)


Anyway, "S.A.R.S." was a so called 'Bird 'flu' if memory serve...and how was it transmitted?

Sweating feverish chineese 'business' men and brokers flying all over the world buying into or selling shares of weapons and manufactureing technologies and buying debt insturments and making 'deals'...

Who would refuse "that" when there is money to be made???

Or are we supposed to believe some 'Migrating Duck' brought it?


Oh!

Oh! what a comedy of compromise, mystification and idiocy...

What a mess!

Oye...

Wish I still had those links...they were real gems...


Love,

Phil
Las Vegas


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

*A agree*

with NumberNine 100% !

Will mankind EVER learn? One of these days we will be so backed up against the "wall," that we may not be able to save ourselves! What is such a shame is that we have the power/ability to change!

Hopefully, more and more people will come to realize we CAN/MUST change to benefit not only us but all others with whom we share this home planet.

From the comments on this thread, this subject has hit a "nerve." We distroy ourselves, we destroy our pigeons!


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

I have a textbook on Parasitology that refers to parasites @ an epicemic propotion in the deep south of our country, while this book is an older text,
you can bet that while it was current, there was no real discussion of that 
on the news or in the public arena. We simply don't like to talk about things 
that are "distasteful". It becomes something separated from our experience and only a problem elsewhere where the poor and ignorant live. We are unable to see ourselves or our behavior as part of the complete picture in these matters.

There is much info to be read about the group soul for animals, I, for one do 
ascribe to such belief systems. There are, however, varied beliefs on what that would mean for the individuation of the animal soul and whether the individuation is continuous throughout the entire Manvantara or not. This would necessitate a long winded conversation on manifested life, Rounds, Pralayas, etc.. It is very complicated and takes years and years, if not lifetimes of study.


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

..mention in the news last night of a, or 'the' Bird-'flu having a small outbreak in Ottowa, Canada ( I think)...

Same area as the so called 'S.A.R.S.' showed up last time...

I tried some 'googles' but no luck...

I agree fp, and with respect NumberNine, that as far as something almost too complicated to discuss anyway - that if we suppose ourselves to posess 'souls' then so must everyone else as far as I can tell.

And for that matter, to me it follows also, that Cells and their co-operative ventures such as Organs and Limbs and so on, as well as the more or less 'whole' of any Life form, would also posess 'souls'...and so too then in my view must those Molecules, being the co-operative ventures of Atoms, posess Souls...and so must Atoms...and...so...

As an organism, we might well be said to 'posess' the 'Group Soul' of all our Organs, Limbs, ancillaries, cells, molecules and so on...concurrently...

Theresa wholelotta Soul goin' on...!

Lol...

There is no reason I can imagine, why Termites for example, should not posess an ancient lore of how god made them 'last of all' and all else is a suport system for their use so god may judge them harshly if they do not seem to show enough deference and obsequies and gratitude and tithes and so on...

For that matter, maybe 'Virises' pass along to their children more or less the same tales of how they are the most special of all...

"Look son, at all them poor lumbering saps lugging around their DNA...of course they were ade for our uses! and note how elegant, perfect and made in god's image we are! - Oh! we are the blessedmost of all creation..."

And so on...at least in 'my' imagination anyway...




But "Bird 'flu"...

...should kindasorta be kept in mind as our main thing here for this thread!

In which, we could consider - do we ascribe TO the Viris, the status of 'Life Form'? Do we suppose it to posess 'intelligence', discernments, judgement, choice, decision, aspirations, fulfillments, sentimentality, aesthetics?

Do we apreciate that Viris have been here since something-like "The Beginning"?

Do we realize that Viris are ubiquitous, and in endless kinds, and live in all Life forms, usually benignly?

We find them not to posess "D.N.A."...while attributes of intelligence and autonomy do seem to characterise their lives or existances.

Under enough magnification, do we find them to resemble a mechanism? Do we see them to posess a definitely mechanical form and function?

Interesting little creatures/constructs/things...it seems to me...

I look at it this way -

A Viris may be said to ba an assembled structure of molecules.

So is a Tree, a Bird, or you and me in so far as one kind of physical description.

The so-to-speak 'intelligence' governing such an assembly occuring, and being maintained, remains for now a question which is difficult for our accustomed rational or irrational abilities for representing things as similes, metaphors or Models to deal with...or, also, usually, to render as discontinuous closed-systems in a way which we can feel satisfied with.

For me anyway, I am happier exprienceing something like the Mystery of this issue, than I would be to say 'how' it is 'so' that such assemblies do occur, or by trying to identify or name the agency or means or provenance of their doing so...or to willingly accept the hear-says of my progenitors, who overall, seem to have known pathetically little about terribly much else anyway.

Or, were not translated by anyone I trust to HAVE known just what they meant, or if what they meant was anything much worth one's time anyway.

There is a 'sweet spot' there, and it is easily lost.

It can also be hard to find...

Love,

Phil
Las Vegas


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