In a message dated 8/7/99 6:02:11 PM PST, rutht at seanet.com writes:

> Pigeons - well, I keep watching them, hoping that I'll
> feel some interest in them, but so far it hasn't happened.

I can't find ANYTHING worthwhile about them. One of my coworkers used to work
for a building cleaning company......he says that the pigeon guano turns into
a substance so hard that they have to use SAND to blast it offf buildings,
and it never all comes off. Plus it stinks and it carries nasties like
coccidiosis (spelling??) and such.

This is only my opinion, mind you, but..........I have a theory that the
introduction of the rock dove (brought over by the Pilgrims as a food
source) was the beginning of the end for the passenger pigeon. Yes, I know
that humans shot them in the hundreds of thousands.......but I believe that
the rock dove brought diseases with it that our passenger pigeon had no
defenses against. Just like the Indians were decimated by smallpox and other
diseases, the rock dove's diseases probably put the passenger pigeon on that
slippery slope to extinction. I've never seen anything in any scientific
literature to back this up. It's just a hunch.
Michelle