As straight as the pigeon flys…

The U.K. Daily Mail must have a geographer on staff because they always have interesting geospatial related stories. They recently have an article about a white water rafting company in Colorado that is using a “pigeon express” to deliver memory cards to the their home base. According to the article, Rocky Mountain Adventures found that trained pigeons were the quickest way cover the 30 miles to Fort Collins to get pictures developed before rafters got back to town. They follow in the great tradition of other homing pigeons such as Cher Ami, who during WWI flew 12 critical missions and was presented with the French Croix de guerre. The American Racing Pigeon Union (Homing Pigeons) which has been active in several forms since 1872 is still going strong today. All registered pigeons have a GPS chip on its leg band and electronic monitors, landing pad scans, and software keep track of race times and competitions.

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