MIAMI -- The U.S. Coast Guard has clipped the wings on its project to turn street pigeons into eagle-eyed lookouts for search and rescue missions.
But it wasn't the pigeons' fault _ just lack of money.
Through Project Sea Hunt, the Coast Guard had hoped to utilize the pigeons this year aboard rescue helicopters operating out of Miami and San Francisco. Now, because the project's funding ran out Wednesday, the birds face a quiet early retirement at an aviary in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
Scientist with the Naval Ocean Systems Center in Hawaii said trained pigeons could spot objects floating in the water faster and more consistently than the Coast Guardsmen and Marine Corps lookouts who ordinarily fly rescue missions.
Pigeons had been taught to peck an electrical switch at the sight of international orange, the widely used color of emergency equipment, said James V. Simmons, the head of the research project.
Three pigeons were placed in separate compartments of a plexiglass bubble beneath a rescue helicopter, and when the pigeon began pecking, the pilot knew which direction to take.
Simmons said the birds had successfully located targets the size of a life vest floating in choppy seas up to three-quarters of a mile away.
They were rewarded with a kernel of corn.
Simmons said the key to the pigeons' high level of performance lies not only in their eyes, but also in the birds' brains.
Pigeons have an 80 degree angle of acute vision, compared to 2 ? degrees for man.
'The pigeon is better suited to visual searches than man,' Simmons said. 'It has a relatively small brain, but it is able to take all of the information the eyes record and process it swiftly.'
Cdr. J.E. Foels of the Barbers Point, Hawaii, air station said cutting the program was not necessarily a good way of saving money. Foels said the development costs were relatively inexpensive.
'And where else are you going to get superior, expert searchers to work for chicken feed?' he asked.
