Original photo by LeoFan/ iStock
Enlisting animals into military service isn’t entirely unusual — dolphins have been used for underwater surveillance and even camels have helped haul supplies. Those successes could be why a Coast Guard program meant to train pigeons for search and rescue missions was able to get off the ground in the late 1970s. Project Sea Hunt’s goal was to more easily (and quickly) find people lost at sea using trained pigeons to act as real-time spotters. Despite their reputation as nuisance fowl, pigeons are easily trainable creatures with outstanding eyesight; they (like many birds) may even have better vision than humans, thanks to their ability to see UV light.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factThere’s not much difference between the birds beyond their name; the word “dove” has Nordic origins, while “pigeon” comes from French. Both birds belong to the Columbidae family and are often categorized by size, but the use of the terms is often subjective.
Pigeons selected for the program underwent six months of training to spot yellow, orange, and red objects in the ocean (the most common colors for flotation devices and rafts), and were then placed in special pigeon chambers underneath helicopters that had a view of the water below. When the trained birds spotted a bright color, they could signal to Coast Guard pilots above by pecking a special pedal that flashed a signal in the cockpit. Test runs found that the pigeons were able to spot targets 90% of the time, compared to the human success rate of just 38%. The pigeons were also faster than their human counterparts, spotting potential victims before humans did 84% of the time.
Despite these successes, Project Sea Hunt was shuttered due to federal budget cuts in the early 1980s. In the years since, the Coast Guard has combined flyovers, ocean-tracking software, and other methods to quickly and safely rescue those lost at sea.
Numbers Don't Lie
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The last known passenger pigeon, named ______, lived to be 29 years old.
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The last known passenger pigeon, named Martha, lived to be 29 years old.
A pigeon saved the lives of nearly 200 American soldiers during World War I.
Pigeons are known for their supreme navigation skills (and for being easily trainable), which is why the U.S. Army relied on them to deliver crucial information during World War I when communication lines were down. The best-known winged warrior, Cher Ami, completed 12 message relays, one of which saved 194 American soldiers in October 1918. The famous flight delivered a message from the 77th Division, a battalion of American soldiers isolated in France’s Argonne Forest behind German lines and suffering from a heavy bombardment of friendly fire. Sending Cher Ami into the sky was risky, since the unit’s other pigeons had been shot down; miraculously, Cher Ami sustained injuries to his chest and leg but returned to the sky, traveling 25 miles in under 30 minutes to deliver information about the battalion’s position that stopped the bombardment. Army medics were able to save Cher Ami, who was retired from service and honored with a Croix de Guerre medal from the French government for his efforts. More than 100 years later, the preserved messenger pigeon is kept on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Nicole Garner Meeker is a writer and editor based in St. Louis. Her history, nature, and food stories have also appeared at Mental Floss and Better Report.
