Pigeon Mail Delivery System

Name: Date: Course: Professor: Pigeon Mail Delivery System Before the discovery and use of motorised vehicles, animals have been used in mail delivery in many countries around the world throughout history. The use of animals used to be the only reliable method of transporting messages over long distances. (Wikipedia 2019) I chose to investigate “Pigeon Post” because the method intrigues me on how the birds are trained to deliver letters to different locations. The pigeon post was used by different societies, particularly the European countries by various government institutions. They established this method to acquire a system for military and social purposes. It was used since ancient times to communicate messages from territories that are far from the central governing bodies. It was also later used for naval purposes to send letters from the land to ships at the sea. (Mary Blume 2004) This method of communication used homing pigeons to carry messages. The pigeons, or doves, were effective as message carriers due to their innate homing abilities. The birds were first transferred to a new location by putting them inside cages. The birds were attached with messages through a container on their bodies, then they would fly back to their home, where the caretaker or owner could read the mail attached to them. During the world war, the pigeon post system was coined as war pigeons. (Wikipedia 2019) The primary technology needed were equipment and cages for the pigeons, and a systematic training method to habituate the pigeons to a home base. Homing pigeons were a practical choice because they were easy to capture and breed. The birds also had innate ability to sense and memorize direction so that they could find their way towards their home base. The training method involved meticulous systems of gradually increasing the range wherein the birds were capable of flying home. T...