Homing Pigeons Can’t Find Home
About 150 carrier pigeons may be flying aimlessly over Europe, their sense of navigation destroyed by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, an environmental magazine reported Friday.
The monthly Airone said the birds were among about 270 released May 1, five days after the reactor fire at the Ukrainian power plant, for a race from Marseilles, France, to their base in the north Italian city of Piacenza.
It quoted experts it did not identify as saying that they suspect that radiation from the Chernobyl reactor, which spread over Europe, had destroyed the birds’ ability to find their way home.
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