Verwilderte Haustauben Thurgau

History and feralisation: Today's city pigeons are the final link in a domestication story reaching back some 5,000 to 10,000 years. In the Near East rock doves used the first stone buildings as nesting sites and followed the spread of grain cultivation as a new food source. From this close association the domestic pigeon emerged over millennia, bred for meat, as a homing pigeon and as a fancy pigeon. Birds that escaped or were released did not return to the loft but settled on buildings and formed the foundation of today's urban populations. Biologically, the city pigeon is therefore a feral domestic animal, comparable to feral domestic cats, not a true wild animal. Urban populations and problem context: Europe is home to several million city pigeons, while global urban populations are estimated in the hundreds of millions. Without meaningful predator pressure and with several broods per year, local stocks grow quickly. The consequences include facade and monument damage from droppings, hygiene issues at railway stations and squares, the spread of diseases within dense flocks (for example paramyxoviruses or ornithosis caused by Chlamydophila psittaci) and a high share of malnourished, sick birds. Hunting law status: The status in Germany is not uniform. Several federal states explicitly exclude the feral domestic pigeon from hunting law and place it under municipal and animal welfare authority. In some states, hunting is possible under narrow conditions on specific areas such as railway property, industrial sites or in defined damage cases, often only with an official permit. Within the so-called pacified district additional rules apply. Safe shooting conditions, accuracy and full compliance with animal welfare law must be ensured at all times. The concrete legal situation must therefore always be clarified with the lower hunting authority, the municipality and, where relevant, the veterinary office. Ethical debate: Hunting city pigeons is controversial. Critics point out that the bird is a feral domestic animal placed into this situation by humans and that animal welfare oriented programmes such as the Augsburg city pigeon concept can regulate populations humanely. In that model supervised pigeon lofts are established, where the eggs are replaced with dummies so the population gradually shrinks. Supporters of selective removal point to specific damage or health situations where other measures fail. For practical hunting work this means every operation must be justified, legally secured and carried out in an animal welfare compliant manner, ideally embedded in a municipal concept. Distinction from wild pigeons: Reliable identification against native wild pigeons is essential. The wood pigeon is clearly larger and carries a striking white neck patch. The stock dove is smaller, uniformly blue grey with a green neck patch and without black wing bars, and shows white underwings in flight. The Eurasian collared dove is much paler, sand coloured with a narrow black neck ring. The turtle dove is the smallest and most colourful species and is strictly protected. City pigeons, in contrast, appear in countless colour variants, from blue grey with black wing bars to slate, brown, pied or almost white, a clear sign of their descent from breeding lines. Anyone operating in an urban hunting context bears a particular responsibility for unambiguous species identification so that no protected wild pigeon species is shot by mistake.