This May Interest You - Tumblr Posts

Last used in the early-to-mid twentieth century, Pelican Discouragers are an important cultural artifact of human-bird relations. Originally used to ‘shoo’ Pelicans away from their nests in order to steal the eggs, they later became defensive items during the retaliatory waterfront kidnappings of human infants.

The example above is from New York City, where convict labor was used as the defense; each Discourager was assigned to a particular inmate (as evidenced by the upper number). At the end of their service life the number of prevented kidnappings was recorded below that of the inmate, with the number of losses to the right. 1394 was the number of “Lucky” Luke DeHerlighy, who had the best win:loss ratio in the history of the NYPD work crew.

Help preserve important Bird History by supporting The Academy of Bird Sciences on Patreon!