Feral pigeons in cities are among the most visible urban wildlife, facing deliberate persecution, disease and food insecurity despite having settled into urban ecologies as true synanthropes.
Urban pigeon welfare involves individual and population considerations. Individual pigeons experience injury from spikes and exclusion methods, avian disease (paramyxovirus, pigeon pox, trichomoniasis), predation by urban peregrines and hawks, and chronic nutritional stress when food sources are restricted. At population level, pigeon numbers are primarily food-regulated - reducing feeding reduces population over time without direct killing. Welfare-positive urban pigeon management uses humane exclusion to protect buildings, reduces supplementary feeding to naturally regulate population, and uses contraceptive bait where population management is needed. Deliberate cruelty to pigeons, which is not uncommon, is a serious welfare crime under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.