In India
The
eastern Indian state of Orissa is special because of a unique police service.
They still use carrier pigeons! In today's world of e-mail and telecommunications,
this is very unusual.
Their service is about 50 years old. Until about 1988, they provided daily communications to and from police stations. Since computers are now in use, there is a chance that they might not keep the birds flying! But there is a strong determination in the state to keep them flying.
Orissa has about 400 police stations covering thousands of kilometers of often remote territory. Now they are linked by two-way radios. You know that it was not always like that. Orissa was the only state that used carrier pigeons to communicate from police stations. The government is still using about 700 pigeons today. If you were to go to pigeon headquarters, you would see six coops of pigeons sitting in a very small yard. The pigeons are labeled according to what type they are. There are hens, cocks, breeders, and squeakers (the local name for young birds that are growing, but can’t yet fly).
The birds have to exercised twice every day, to keep them fit. Food is used as the means to get them to fly back to the stations. Even though it only costs about 5 cents a day to feed each pigeon, there has been lots of pressure from the government to eliminate this carrier pigeon service. But there are many many people who want to keep the tradition alive, so hopefully, this service will continue for many more years.
