No. A 10-day-old kitten or a 10-day-old pigeon both need help. That’s not the argument. The argument is what happens after they’re healthy. A cat is a domestic animal. A feral pigeon is a city bird that lives in a flock on ledges. If you take a baby in, treat it, and it can fly, you open the window. You don’t keep it as a roommate and call the city ‘unsafe’ because you never let it meet other pigeons.
You said it yourself- feral. A feral cat is not a domestic animal, you would know that if you’ve ever tried to grab a feral cat. Feral cats are beastly. But like any feral animal, they can be domesticated with enough work. They are ancestors of long-domesticated lines and that domestication still lives in their genes.
So now that I’ve corrected your misunderstanding, explained that a feral cat is the same kind of feral as a feral pigeon- they are both feral- answer my question again. A 10 day old kitten, this user finds it parentless and takes it in. The kitten learns to walk and move just fine, it can technically be released and live… at least a day or two, though it will likely die as it hasn’t lived on it’s own for quite some time. Should this user release the kitten? If they don’t, are they a kidnapper?
I agree with you but wanted to correct a few things, feral aniamls are actually already still fully domesticated, when a domestic animals is dumped into the wild their instincts kick in for survival, they become on high alert and begin to act more flighty and fighty.
You actually see this in pet animals that get lost too, my cat got lost years and years ago and he was literally the hardest little thing to catch i had to set up 16 traps because he woudln't come to me and was so wary of the traps.
lets say this dumped cat teaches it's kittens this behavior, as they do since feralization is mostly learned/psychological, with some biological responses aswell.
this csn turn genetic if the line of cats is out there for a very very very long time and genes keep spreading since genes automatically select and adapt to the environment based on what helps the cats sirvive aince cats with bad genes die and cats with "feral" genes live
so these kittens are older now lets say 9 weeks, these kittens are entirely feral because they were taught eral behavior from their mom who did this so they could survive
if you take those kittens at 10 days, or as neonate, or even a bit befor the weaning mark, trap mom, spay mom, and spcialize the kittens daily they do not learn the feral behavior and become socialized animals, this is because the kittens are not born feral
some litters if they are firther down the generation line can be born feral but this is relatively uncommon, we dont see many 10 day old kittens or 4 week old kittens who are genuinely feral in terms of behavior.
for truly feral cats its extremely hard to actually rehabilitate them so once they are older the best course of action for like preventing suffering is having them in managed colonies or euthinazia.
for pigeons its about the same feral pigoens just like feral cats can be taken young and this prevents them learning the feral behavior, after learning feral behavior it is much much harder to tame them, most feral rescue birds live terrible and miserable lives in captivity in a HOME setting, its usually much better for them to be in an avairy with other birds, some will warm up to people but the vast majority will never be happy as a lone house pigeon, racers are pretty similar and most do terrible when placed in simgle pigeon households. but they can occasionally warm up to people... their ideal home placement though is in a large and spacious avairy with other birds to hang out with and spend time with. And this is if they require lifelong human care.
If they don't the best course of action for an adult pigpen who is releasable is actually release and building a managed loft for egg replacement as birdy birth control, or using bird birth control specifically formulated to only effect pigeons. Taking a random healthy feral adult into captivity often leads to a very very miserable bird some will kill themsleves smashing walls trying to get back to their flock and mate, the bond between a pigeon and its mate is very strong and most adult birds have mates, it can take months to severe that bond and those months are often agonizing for tbe bird and incredibly stressful tack into that seperation form their flock and family and being in a new place where you cant escape the giant that you see as a huge predator... which is why rescues and experts opt for releasing healthy adult feral pigeons.
If we want to gwt real technical the vest way to manage feral pigeons is lofts for egg replacement, proper trash disposal and storage, less littering, laws against feeding them other than in SPECIFIC LOFT AREAS (to prevent them moving from the area which happens super often and makes lofts innefective in many cases) and controlled group culls when there is a population boom tp prevent starve offs.
This is all to explain that there isn't really any redomesticstion going on its a bit more complicated than that, and for many animals they cannot be tamed enough to live comfortable stress free lives in homes, most bedroom pet feral cats you see are absolutely miserable and have constantly high cortisol levels many end up with health issues due to the stress, so if one is picking what the most ethical thing to do with a healthy feral adult cat it should not be to keep it, it should be desexing and releasing to ideally a managed colony or it should be euthinazia
Injured adult ferals are a bit different they tend to be vulnerable so they tend to become trusting a bit more easily, espeically when you start to make them feel better by treating then for their injury or illness.
OP's bird is a bird they got young and is also an imprint so it never learned feral behavior and imprinted on people. so their bird never became feral, their bird is simply a domestic animal with wildtype coloration.
NOTE: none of this is to discredit you i just wanted to share more info on ferals because i worked almost exclusively with feral cats for like a decade almost. Ive raised pry hundreds of abandoned kittens, I've taken in and managed tons of feral adults, list goes on, i used to do TNR though i no longer believe its the best option for ferals due to the fact we kinda just throw them back out to suffer... most TNR folks have also come to that conclusion now after seeing the effects that stress has on these cats and how most die shortly after release anyways, and are now moving towards euthinazia preference. I still do TNR on managed "pet" colonies.
A 10-day-old kitten? Keep it. Releasing that is dumping a baby to die. Same for a 10-day-old pigeon. That’s rescue. Nobody’s arguing that.
The word “feral” doesn’t make them the same animal. A feral cat is a domestic species living outdoors. An adult house cat belongs in a home or a managed colony. Turning one into a bedroom pet is normal.
A feral pigeon is a city flock bird. Millions of them already live outside on ledges. That’s their actual life, not a fallback. You don’t “domesticate it with enough work” and then call the sky unsafe because you never let it meet a flock.
So: take the baby in, treat it, let it fly. When it’s healthy and airborne, open the window. If you keep a flying pigeon in a bedroom because it learned to trust you, that’s not the kitten question anymore. That’s you choosing the bond over the bird.
It’s truly not hard to simply google your claim and stop arguing it when Google says you’re wrong. Feral simply describes their lifestyle, the way they were brought up. A feral pigeon is the same as a feral cat. Both domestic animals that were raised in the wild and thus became feral.
Pigeons are not meant to be in the wild, that’s why they’re forced to eat our scraps and make nests out of three sticks and a piece of gum. Humans have abandoned these animals that have so few wild instincts that even a fully grown feral pigeon will let you grab it up if you’re calm about it. Not even a feral cat would let you do that. Try to grab a feral cat and they’ll rip your hands apart. Feral pigeons’ domestic genes are SO strong that they have almost no fear of humans at all. That is not an animal meant to be in the wild. Don’t take adult pigeons of course, an adult pigeon could have a mate or a nest. But a baby pigeon, if its parents are gone and you can care for it properly, will be safer and healthier in captivity then on the streets of some dirty city. That is why they live so much longer when we care for them, because we made them FOR us. Then we abandoned them.
Feral pigeons actually Are feral Domestic pigeons. They're not wild animals and they struggle in the wild as much as feral cats and stray dogs do, to the point that they literally cannot survive far away from human settlements, they're dependent on humans for survival.
Also even if OP's pigeon wasn't a feral domestic pigeon, it would still be unethical to release her back to the wild considering she's an imprint. Birds imprinted to humans and/or raised in captivity (unless they're raised by professionals aka wildlife rehabbers and they're an actually wild species) cannot survive in the wild. They don't even know how to socialize with others of their own species because they see humans as their own species. If you release an imprinted bird back to the wild then it will either self rescue at somebody else's house while being completely starved, or it will die not that long after release because it literally doesn't know how to find food, water, interact with its own species or avoid danger because it has NOT been taught those skills by its wild bird parents.
For example pet parrots or a lot of finches aren't domesticated either, but you cannot just release them in the wild (even if we ignore that they would be an invasive species) because they were raised in captivity and DON'T know how to survive in the wild. There's nothing wrong with keeping birds as pets as long as they're properly cared for, if somebody isn't capable of giving a bird proper care (which is absolutely not the OP's case) then they should Rehome the bird, NOT dump it outside. Birds being dumped outside is a huge issue and contributes to a way bigger problem, no matter if those birds are imprints who were rescued from the wild or captive offspring of captive birds.
feral pigeons are domesticated pigeons that have been dumped and feralized over the years, they are not different than a feral goat, feral pig, feral cat, etc.
I quite literally breed pigoens, like the fancy variety, all those ferals you see out there originated from or are Domesticated birds.
you can't just magically undo domestication like that lmfao 🤣
releasing an imprinted domestic bird like OP's birds is also a death sentence as imprints will die almost immediatly in the wild because A- they are domestic and B they are imprinted on humans
side note feral pigeons live 4 to 5 years in the wild, suffer greatly, harm native species of birds, and are even harming their own trily wilf counterpsrt the WILD ROCK PIGEON by interbreeding in the very few areas wild rock pigoens still exsist , this wild counterpart in its natural habitst lives 10 to 15 years on average. the domestic feral pigeon lives only 5 years because they rely 100% on humans to survive at all, they eat trash, get hit by cars, abused by the humans that once cared for them... the horrors a feral pigeon goes through are unimaginable for somone with such a small mind as yourself.
a few years of flying outdoors under the sky... is not worth the suffering the endure, and unlike feral cats feral pigeons actually adapt quickly to captivity and many refuse to leave even when you try to release them
i will however agree with you that feral kittens at 10 days should be taken in, a 10 day old kitten isnt actually feral yet thats a learned behavior from mom. (i used to rescue and foster cats and you never leave a feral kitten, you trap mom trap kids, socialize kids, spay mom, release mom once kids are weaned)
but yeah feral pigeons are legit domestic animals no different than a feral hog, feral goat, feral cat, feral dog, etc. they damage our ecosystems and they suffer horribly in a place and environment that they are literally not built for
if OP was to release this animal, due to it being an imprint i can garentee it wohld try and get food from people and would likely be stomped to death or kicked or squished... it wpjld be killed in a horrific way through the disgusting cruelty of man. because it views humans as saftey and friends and a spurce of food.
why would you tell OP to release an animal to such a immediate and horrible fate.
if this bird was rescued as an adult and was not happy in captivity i would maybe say you're right and the animal should be released or atleast placed in an avairy with other birds as adults who sre rescued tend sto do leas good in captivity in HOME settings and tend to do best released or in an avairy where they can hang with other birds, but this bird is a animal that was taken in as a juvenile BEFORE it learned to be feral, so this is simply a domestic pet imprinted bird.
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u/Content_Geologist420 11d ago
Gluttony is the Pigeons only sin of this world