The Toxicity and Paranoia of Pigeon Poop

There is nothing more adorably cute and heartwarming than witnessing a small flock of pigeons innocently roosting high up in or on an abandoned building which they have claimed their own. Unlike the adorability in the sight of these loving clusters, however, is the thick, crispy cream-coloured trail of poop they leave behind, which takes the likeness of melted candlewax.

Apart from the crusty and disgusting appearance of these trails, what the general public, general public meaning all humans seeing as humans and pigeons are of a different breed and humans are affected by the pigeons, tend to miss is that this unsettling path of faeces has the tendency to not only be unsettling to sight, but also to microscopic human parts, as, like a human surfer on a gigantic wave, these waves of poop carry pathogens dangerous to human health. 

The truth is that the inhalation of pigeon excretion by humans can cause humans to ingest diseases like salmonella, tuberculosis or a form of pneumonia called ornithosis. All this can come to you from a gooey form of digested bread or fried chips. It is frightening to think so. It is also frightening to think that like someone awfully sick sneezing in your vicinity, whilst you are in an unventilated place covered in dried pigeon poop, you cannot inhale safely unless you are wearing some form of respiratory protectants. If not, you are probably also capable of being affected with meningitis, where if not treated in the correct manner, can shut down your nervous system and kill you off within twenty-four hours. If you are treated though, you still run a risk from having neurological or lung damage, or other effects not yet known due to the extreme phobia of pigeons – think about it, if so many people were not afraid of pigeons, that amount of people would have likely died of pigeon poop attacks.

Apart from pathogens, pigeon poop can also harbor varied deadly types of fungi, such as Histoplasma Capsulatum, which can cause Histoplasmosis in humans, which begins flu-like and with no other lethal symptoms, and leaves the human feeling as though pigeons pooped in their lungs. Another type of fungus, Cryptococcus Neoforans, whose name in itself is quite cryptic, excuse the pun, can also arise from dried pigeon poop, but can only affect those with a weak immune system, so if a person like Hercules had pigeons as pets and roosted with them, he would only be affected in the Histoplasmosis sense of things.

If anything, pigeon poop can be useful as a fertilizer. To avoid contact of pigeon poop, if you are extremely paranoid and now are suffering from unsettling paranoia from reading this essay, then you should purchases a new pot-plant and somehow attach the pot to your head whenever you wish to walk around a place that has a heightened probability of having pigeon poop unknowingly to yourself placed upon you from a nearby pigeon, in which case it would dry up and you would have inhaled it when it was too late for you to avoid any sort of potential disease. If you do so, then instead of running the risk of ingesting tuberculosis or any other horrid disease, you will have a healthy pet plant. That way, you both receive sunlight and fresh air.

In reality, though, anything can kill a human, whether it be the eventual demise from smoking, the overdose of illicit drug substances, or a freak accident where while trying to avoid pigeon poop coming onto you and trying to turn it into instant fertilizer by wearing a pot-plant on your head, you have a gigantic dog climb your shoulders and drag your down face first into the concrete as it tries to mark its territory on your quite looked after plant, thus dying from fatal head trauma. Anything can happen, really. So you, my fellow reader, should not take this post as offering the implication that what pigeons excrete can immediately kill you – it may, but so might your hairdryer, or your oven – I apologize, horrible Sylvia Plath reference.

All jokes aside, do not fear pigeons. Fear only the pranksters who fed them laxatives and had them poop all over fellow strangers on a warm sunny day in England. That is fearful.