How Were Carrier Pigeons Trained?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- In the past, pigeons were used to convey important messages. But exactly how were pigeons trained to do that, and which ancient civilization was the best at it?
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Got a neat historical idea? Drop a comment and I'll try to get to it!
As someone who has just recently discovered this Chanel I must say your expertise in animation has coke quite a long way keep up the good work my good sir
*cocaine
Hahaha i was thinking the same
It can't go any further, it's metha-done
My favorite use thought up for a pigeon was as a missile guidance system. Before proper guided missiles were figured out some lads had the bright idea to train a pigeon to peck at specific pictures on a screen in a compartment inside a missle. Some were tested and somewhat successful but never put in full production.
Reminds me of Olga of Kiev the Russian queen that sought revenge on a city for murdering her husband, and she did this in many ways, one of the ways she did this was sending pigeons with burning sticks (something like that) back to the city where they set it ablaze.
It raised some other questions like, how long would a pigeon live in some place that wasn't their "home"? Couldn't pigeons "get used to" to the new place and forget the way home?
yeah that was in the video, the question is how long would you keep them in a cage before they forgot about their old home. Thats a good question and never talked about in those videos
Seems that they remember wherever they made a nest
@@cc0767 They don't forget unless you interfere with their memories eg by providing new stimuli. Former bird seed supplier and sponsor of pigeon races here.
@@Epidian so like animals who go to a specific place to breed even though they have never been there before? Biological GPS, kinda cool
maybe it's a trade secret?
You sound like the narrator from little big planet
Oh my! What I've been thinking!
Dis is true
True
Didn't Stephen Fry narrate Little Big Planet? If so, he does sound like him.
I miss lbp
Weren't there 2-way pigeons? I've heard that some pigeons have a separate home and feeding roost. So they're released in the morning and fly to the feeding roost and then by afternoon they fly back to their home roost. So it's basically a once-a-day walkie-talkie.
wonder how that would work. surely the pisgeon would just stay near the feeding roost since there is no reason for it to go home.
@@midshipman8654 No such thing as a feeding roost. If they're feeding they aint roosting. The video completely fails to mention the widowhood system where you pair 2 birds up and then send the cock off somewhere far away and release him to fly home to his mate. Most pigeon racing is conducted in this manner.
@@midshipman8654 well personally I prefer to sleep in my bed rather then in the kitchen even though the kitchen has all the food. My bed is just more comfy and warm. If you make sure that the sleeping location is a much better shelter then the one where the food is I guess they might go back
@@darioranft9148 maybe. though I could see a pidgeon just setting up in a hollow tree or in the beams under a roof close to the feeders. remember, for a carrier pidgeon to be useful, I would have to imagine it being some distance away from their roost. And that kinda makes your analogy weird since here their kitchen would be a few dozen miles away from the bedroom. At that point, might as well get a new apartment with easy access to the kitchen.
Though one thought might be if the pigeon has eggs in one location so that they would return after eating.
@@darioranft9148 they are pigeons. Birds. "Comfy" for them is "Close to food source"
Thanks for this video, I randomly pondered upon how they were trained, and this explains it simply.
I could not understand how they could be trained to fly to different places, but only trained to fly back to its original home makes more sense.
After hearing the story of cher ami, I was really curious about how this works. Thanks for the video
Same here :)
I just came across your channel today, and haven't been able to get enough. I've almost run through your entire library of videos already.
I love this narrator, he sounds like the one who always doing narration for children's animal documentary ? Your sound is very clear, I'm enjoying watching your video ^^ I'm a Malaysian Chinese
It's amazing how your art on this channel has evolved. The editing, script, and narration has always been perfect.
This channel is going to blow up, it's just a matter of time.
This video is underrated! Pikachu was hilarious!
*This is when the question is answered:* 1:44
This channel legit needs more subs.
Fascinating seeing how the way you present your videos has evolved, this feels almost like a different channel in comparison to your more recent videos.
10 /10 cant believe i just came across ur channel this week whats wrong with the ytube algorithm they shouldve recommended ur channel years ago
Interesting video. Yeah know once in WWII Pigeon bombs could've been used to take out ships because of their excellent homing ability. But higher military echelons considered it too weird to work. Although it would've worked quite well.
The noble Greek pigeon @1:15 and the Roman and Mongolian pigeon @1:18 are so cute !!! I love how you animated this
Thank you! I've always been so confused about carrier pigeons. Movies made me think you could just train them and be able to tell them where to go and they would go there. Now i know you just train them to go home, and that you have to bring them with you, and can only send messages back home
Is this Steven Fry's secret passion project channel?
Wow your animation and art has really improved. I'm glad this channel is doing welll!
Hey congrats on reaching 9 million views in total. soon you guys will hit 10 million😍 am so excited.
I can't get enough of these videos and there are so few 😭
Great video. Love the awesome combination of humor (Pikachu xD) and education.
This deserves a remaster
I cannot watch anything about pigeons without being reminded of Blackadder.
Although the episode in question was not perfectly accurate in terms of how pigeon message service worked. =D
Ah, poor old speckled Jim
the animation style really changed over the years
Jolly good video and what a wonderful voice!
Amazing development on the artstyle
They have adorable pharo hats haha
Can you answer a question I have? So if they are only trained to fly home how can your friend get your pigeon in order to send you a message, because if they have to come get it then I’m confused.
you take a vacation at some point and deliver your pigeon to their house. When they want to message you, theyll release the pigeon and it will fly to you. You could also make it so that the bird sleeps in one home but is only fed at the other, so it goes back and forth constantl.
Perhaps you feed the bird in both homes... when you want to send a message, you stop feeding the bird - so naturally it flies to the only other place it knows will find food
@@adebayox4031 omg this is so smart!
Nope, there is only one way: Ship carrier to sender who attaches the message and releases it. This is a huge limit on pigeon carriers and the only advantage is speed on the return, you can only send a message BACK with the pigeon.
A good example was during siege breaks where several units (in and out) needed to coordinate their actions. Smuggle some pigeons from the outside in and from the inside out and now the besieged and their liberators can quickle exchange some messages. Another is outlook towers that would have a few pigeons trained from the nearby city so when needed they could send quick messages about invaders.
I never knew it was simply one way. Well that removes the mystery
Also, your voice is good for story telling, i would suggest history story telling, like the story of napoleon or the roman empire or something like that. I also want to point something out, business casual's videos seem to work because the way he does them is matching his voice. There's just something about his voice and the way his videos are done that feels well. Your video in the way you're doing it feels entertaining but i don't get to learn something valuable to me, i didn't like the topic but i did like the animations and the voice over in the way they're done(they feel like matching each other). I think (but i don't know) that your channel could surpass crash course history and the reason that is , is because in crash course videos he rushes his supposedly informative videos which leaves the audience clueless in the middle of it and i have to repeat the video over and over to understand what he is saying whereas yours you take your pace in telling the story which is important for learning. So i'd suggest trying it out and see if it works. Edit: i didn't know you did a video about britain and the u.s at the time of writing this xD
Love your channel
Always wondered how they were trained. Great video!
Good video! Never knew they only flew one way, makes sense now.
omg, the pigeon costumes are great!
General Melchett "You shot my Speckled Jim?!?!"
If you know you know
How was the pigeon who saluted Putin trained?
with some video effects
Poor guy spent 22 months in a gulag, was tortured and then sent to a reintegration camp. In order to be sent free, he was required to salute to Putin. Rumor says that if you walk by his house and look in, he is still holding the pose out of fear that Putin will come back. Apparently Donald trump requested him, but the pigeon couldn't find the way to his home, since he no longer stays with Putin in his home
he wasn't trained he just love motherland
He wasn't, all animals instinctively know Putin is their King.
Your so dump bro it just said it in the video
Damn son... they became blockbusters
How is it useful if you only train them to fly home? Isn’t the point to carry the message somewhere else?
They then give the birds to other nobles, usually an allied kingdom would raise them and then give em out to their allies
The animation is so cute! 😂
little do they know, im training a pigeon the second i get my hands on one
Awesome video, I loved it!
I wish I had a pigeon as a pet
They're actually not that expensive, and they're really good pets.
Wow that’s very interesting I had this question in my head all the time I never thought they are a one-way message also interesting indeed
I tied a basket to a beam in my apartment, therefore attracting many pigeons 😂 I figure maybe I could train the small army living on my balcony 😝
"Homing pigeon" is more modern terminology.
I’m here cuz I realized you could win over any girl if she recieved a letter from a carrier pidgin. This was and remains a genious idea
Carrier pigeons are extinct 😢
Ive always wondered this exact question😂. Thank you
So, for every person, there is a different pigeon? Hmm... Interesting..
Dude the thumbnail reminded me so much of sam o'nella
I think I might have missed it. They keep releasing the pigeon further and further away from home but if your sending it away from home what do you do??? Or you have one pigeon that goes to onr place... How do you get it back???
Luckily I'm an reincarnate of an ancient egyptian peasant that introduced pigeon keeping, so I do keep these towers.
So I assume armies would take pigeons with them and as they run out, they are supplied with pigeons from where they want to send messages to?
So how were they used in war? The soldiers surely kept them for days and fed them then wouldn't it want to stay there and not go home? Same for sending pigeons from A to B. Like surely keeping them on either place would make them switch their home.
Also, can they be trained to go to a certain person instead?
They weird smart
I wonder if the idea for this video came from him getting on Twitter and thinking for a minute
An interesting idea for me always was if FDR hadn’t died he might’ve had a negotiated settlement with the Soviet Union and created an international system of cooperation and avoided the Cold War.
Okay the videos about carrier pigeons and you bring out that FDR. No to your hypothesis test
@@williamsample2631 HAHA, owned and boned
Very interesting
Good show 🧐
carrier pigeon? Because pigeon gets carried or because the pigeon carriers?
Watching this cuz I want to train my pigeon
I loved your bit about Mexico City roads being one way! Nice joke mate!
I like how this tastes like
How'd I get this in my recommendations?
So, we’re specific pigeons trained to go to specific places only?
They make great bomb guidance, too.
He said. " on your windshield , mmmmmmm" wtf
How they have fallen... =(
This would be a cute kids book
Pigeons were ancient email.
Hawks were ancient malware.
How do one way pigeons work? You would need to have 1 from each city you might want to send a message to. And they would need to have 1 of yours to send a reply. And that's only for one message and reply, because after that both pigeons are home.
Oh, come on. Mexico City roads are one-, two-, and even three-way when our dear, terrible drivers really set their minds to it
Well I get how they know how to come back home. But I still don't quite get how they know where to go to deliver the message.
The message receiver is located at their home.
@@JNChannel95 But how do they know how to get to the person receiving the message they are delivering to?
@@byronsenior6499 They are able to sense the earths magnetic field. So they have like a built in compass in their body. That coupled with their other senses.
Is that a pikachu at the beginning
Thought it was a potato until I saw the wing 0.29 sec
nothing changed, we just upgraded to twitter :)
This animation is quaint but I'm a much bigger fan of the new one, seems more in tune with what the channel is. It really matches the over all character, and I don't think it'd be as successful with this original style which is charming, however, I feel is a bit amateurish, no offense to the original animators. And I am but a lowly viewer, not a creator, and a broke one at that! Perhaps someday I could be a patron, but I'll have to give up the smack first. Anywho thanks for the content!
Is that a pikachu?
Thank you sir for discussing this video about the role of pigeons, like in my country (Indonesia 🇮🇩) where there is a pigeon corpse preserved in a museum in the East Java area which has been instrumental in delivering letters to Indonesian heroes during the Indonesian independence period until they were shot by the invaders (*cough, Dutch 🇳🇱) because it was caught as a spy. And now that pigeon has been awarded the rank of 'Lieutenant'
Wow
Wait so someone had to secretly carry the pigeon to the enemy first? I had never wondered how message carrying pigeons worked in the past and now I have so many questions
nah, u train them for a home (some base) then take them to the battlefield. If u need to send a message back to base, u write it and let loose
@@catharsis8338 so effectively, they only work one way?
@@liambroughton910pretty much and makes more sense
@@liambroughton910Yeah. Cartoons tend to portray it as career pigeons flying wherever but that is not how it works, you take them to a place like a battlefield and within a few days you set them free so they can fly home
If that's the case that pigeons are only one way, you gotta carry back a pigeon from its home to your place after every each time you used it! I dont think it's possible. There must be some other trick that pigeons are two way!
super late but the idea is that you take a bird with you to, for example, a battlefield. likely you will have several birds with you but they are all trained to go back to your headquarters and it is as simple as writing the letter home, and the bird will take it. between houses, cities or nations however, couriers were used, but that's just a human messenger. the pigeon was a quick and one way bird used for relatively short missions, not long term ones where they would simply forget their old home and nest somewhere new.
@@zanderdev57 I heard 2-way pigeons were a thing but not as common as the 1-way. Basically the home roost and feed roost are different. They fly out to the feed roost to eat and then fly back to the home roost to sleep.
Who's that Pokemon ?
I need to get more promotion
Pigeons live in crees?
So they don't go back n forth ??? Like can't they have 2 "homes"
Hi, can you tell us how you're doing?
One way!? Tch
Please make an intro
Example TED-ed
aren't pigeons still used as drug mules dropping of packages to prisons lol.
my 4
Carrier pikachu
Well the better versions of them all died and now we are stuck with the awful one.
They best not shoot Speckled Jim
Send a Tweet...old school
Cher ami
Hi
Bird
Yes
🍨