An Entry For the Birds
WRITTEN BY: MICHELLE SILLS | OCTOBER 21, 2023
Pigeon walking at the Roosevelt Train Stop
It’s been one month in Chicago, and I think I’ve seen more pigeons here than I have in my lifetime. As I get more comfortable riding the buses, trains, and subway, I’m seeing more and more of the city and realizing just how monolithic the natural environment is. The Lincoln Park Zoo was absolutely inundated with people. Scurrying around during the fall festival dressed in their best Halloween costumes, their only priority was to collect as much candy as could fit in their bags. Kids, parents, and teenagers, all adorned with sacks of candy, walked around loosely, paying attention to the animals kept within the zoo. Some zoos make me happy to be in, learn about the animals, and see what their natural habitats could look like. At this zoo, I experienced the opposite. It felt as if the animals were kept inside small prisons, wrought with the same daily routine of sifting through news clippings for snacks—seen as an interactive activity for the animals. To me, it felt as though these animals were being maintained, rather than truly living. Instead of dwelling on the animals within the cages, I directed my attention to the animals outside of the enclosures. The people whizzed around, cutting through others and forming their own paths like a swarm of busy bees collecting their sweet treats. The crowds of people were strange, coming from all different communities to one central location. It’s a wonder that we can function in this shared social illusion that the people around us are presumed to be of similar values and beliefs and so able to conjugate peacefully in one area. As divided in this country as the news makes us out to be, there must be some sort of glue holding us all together—and perhaps it was the stickiness of the caramel apples from the stand just around the corner.
The pigeons in the park were flying everywhere, picking up the treats that hurried aliens, princesses, and witches hastily dropped during their walk. With this invasiveness of humans circulating the city, we have inadvertently created invasiveness in the other species surrounding us. Seemingly only those scavenger types can survive in our society, taking the scraps and making do. However, these pigeons seemed to thrive more than survive. Their bobbing heads and perching bodies sat awaiting each opportunistic bite. You can find these birds in some of the most interesting parts of town, and certainly anywhere there will be food scraps. Walking to work past the McDonald's, pigeons will be pecking the ground for crumbs. Getting some food at the grocery store will be pigeons panhandling for leftover snacks. And the most curious of all, standing at the underground train stop awaiting the next inbound train—you will see pigeons bobbling around enjoying the train’s breeze. They must be happy here, or too dumb to know their fate. The likelihood of an escape seems far from plausible, knowing that I can barely navigate my way out of the underground transport systems.
These poor birds are just another mark of our modern consumer-centric world. Whether they know it or not, their fate might lie in our hands. As we continue to dominate this planet with our buy-use-throwaway habits, we might continue to train animals around us to cater to the whims of humans - and I’m not so sure this is a healthy way to be. Perhaps we can spend more time genuinely learning from those animals in the zoo, form a deeper connection with the world around us, and see how interconnected we all are.
