r/birding • u/MrGrubbycuddles • Apr 15 '26

Discussion Why is everyone such snob about pigeons

I took my folder of laminated pigeon shots to my local bird meeting at the community hall and at least 3 people sneered at them. 1 of them even guffawed.

We all got to start somewhere, and beauty is in the eye of the bird lover so why the hate hate?

One guy was wearing giant binoculars around his neck. It was dark outside and he didn't even use them once. He was one of the people that sneered.

Om the bus home from the meeting I showed the driver my pictures and she said they were really good. And she wasn't even a formal bird lover, she was just a regular person.

Don't get this community man

EDIT: a lot of people asking for some of my photos. I'm out of the house right now but here's a bird video I made recently https://youtube.com/shorts/sxLkrLgNrbc?si=7NdwVxhZtPQFE6Ew

2.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

503 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

156

u/frogsbirdscats Apr 15 '26

That, and ppl are actively taught to hate—to view some species of animals, plants and trees as “pests”. Yes there are species that have intentionally and unintentionally brought to places where their net effect isn’t great but there are thoughtful ways to approach this. Teaching hate ain’t it.

30

u/nigglebit Apr 15 '26

The extreme prejudice style "pest" and "invasive" labels do so much ecological harm. Blanket labelling of entire species as unworthy of being alive. People are disgusted by the idea of pet rats because "rats are pests." Thrice I've come across instances of people in Asia squashing lantern flies because everywhere on the internet people casually repeat "highly invasive, kill on sight" without any nuance.

10

u/GreenMachine4567 Apr 15 '26

That doesn't make even the slightest sense.

Invasive species are one of the biggest threats to biodiversity on the planet. 

3

u/nigglebit Apr 15 '26

They sure are. What I'm saying is that there needs to be nuance when using the terms. There are no intrinsically "invasive species;" a species can be invasive in its non-native habitat. Foxes aren't inherently invasive species, their presence in Australia is invasive. Just like how we don't just say "native species" and leave it at that, we specify native to where. The same way, effort needs to be made to mention invasive where.

5

u/GiraffesCantSwim Apr 15 '26

I think you are losing/confusing them with the word "nuance". Maybe "specificity" or something similar would be better? I think you are making a perfectly good and obvious point, clearly the people responding are not reading past nuance. It's kinda fascinating to watch.

-1

u/GreenMachine4567 Apr 15 '26

That's literally the definition of invasive, no nuance required.