How A Homing Pigeon Saved Lives  (BTW: I carved the Homing Pigeon you see here. Would you like to buy one ?)

Recently the New Jersey Museum of Boating in Pt. Pleasant, NJ asked me to carve a replica of a very special Homing Pigeon for them.

 In the museum,  they have a display-wall on which they tell many stories of the way Homing Pigeons were employed by local boatmen back in the 1930s. One of those good news stories follows:
 
There was a teen-ager who raised pigeons near the commercial fishing boat marina. He offered the homing services of his pigeons to the captains of fishing boats.  For fifty cents a day the fishing boat captains could rent one of the pigeons and take it with them on their offshore fishing trips.  When one of the boats, maybe fifty miles out, found a place where they were catching fish, the captain wrote a note, put it on the pigeon then released it to fly back home.  When the homing pigeon (a Homing Pigeon flies at about fifty miles per hour) arrived at the marina where it lived, the teenager gave the note to the local fishing boat captains. In that way the fishermen knew exactly where to go to find a profitable fishing site on any given day.

One time a fishing boat that was about fifty miles out in the ocean, with one of the Homing Pigeons aboard, developed a serious leak and the crew knew in spite of all they could do, the boat would sink in a few hours. 

 An S.O.S. note was hastily attached to their Homing Pigeon and it was released. A few hours later, a rescue boat arrived and, just as the troubled boat was about to be completely submerged and sink to the bottom, all of the men aboard the fishing boat were saved, thanks to the flight of that one magnificent Homing Pigeon.

P.S. My hand carved replica of The life saving pigeon (see picture) is now on display at the museum.  If there is something you would like to have sculpted or carved, tell me what it is and I'll let you know if I can do it for you. Email: junipertd338@comcast.net. Or, look at some of my other bird carvings . See: CARVED SHOREBIRDS in the list on your left.

Terry Weber 8/12/07