My dad used to race pigeons back in the early 60’s. Occasionally he would not have a pigeon that would not come home. We have used homers for dog training most of these birds are planted about 30 miles from home. Only on rare occasions as I recall did they not make it home.
We have shot a few thousand feral pigeons at dairy’s over the years and only shot one that was banded. I actually felt kind of bad I had killed it but it’s not something you have any control over. After having shot so many pigeons why did I even give a second thought to this pigeon? It was probably due to a childhood memory of my dad checking his pigeon coupe for a number of days hoping his pigeon might have returned.
It clearly was not a sense of, I shot something unique like a hunter does when taking a duck banded for research.
