A common site within most of our cities around the world is the Rock Pigeon or "winged rats" as some people may call them. Their success in these environments is likely due to their ability to adapt so well to our urban expansions that tend to be void of their natural predators and full of discarded food. This has lead to an estimated population of 260 million birds around the world [ref].
Fun Fact: This is well below the world’s most prominent bird species (the chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus)) which has an estimated population of over 50 billion individuals (good pub quiz fact).
We at SAFRING do not have a large number of records of Rock Pigeons within our database (primarily as they are listed as invasive on the NEMBA list), so our longevity record may be underestimated. Our longevity record is also a recent one which was ringed as an adult and has yet to be recovered so will likely be older then our calculated age. On average this species lives around 5 years in the wild and up to 15 years in captivity. The maximum international longevity record comes from the United Kingdom where an individual reached 8 years and 1 month [ref].
If you feel you know of an older record please contact us at SAFRING with the details.
The image within this article is accredited to Andrew Dunn
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| Taxonomy | Maximum Longevity |
| Order: Columbiformes Family: Columbidae Genus: Columba |
n/a (Roberts 7) >4.6 years (SAFRING) |
| Species | Ring Number |
| Columba livia | 6A03956 |
| Common name | Sample size |
| Rock Pigeon | Ringed: 144 Retrapped: 16 Recovered: 3 Total: 163 |
