Pigeons are unappreciated. Often thought of as pests in big cities, they scavenge for discarded particles of food and stare blankly at passersby. It’s led some people to believe, falsely, that pigeons aren’t very intelligent or worthy of the space they take up.

Some people have even been known to try and poison them.

But it’s time to change our thinking. Humans domesticated pigeons thousands of years ago, and part of the reason they congregate around humans is because they’ve lost much of their survival instinct. Beyond even that, they’re highly intelligent creatures that don’t get nearly the credit they deserve.

Pigeons have been trained to identify cancer with remarkable accuracy

A study published in 2015 noted that the visual systems used by pigeons have a lot in common with those of humans. The researchers decided to put that visual recognition to the test in a high-stakes scenario.

Pigeons were trained with food reinforcement to recognize the difference between images of malignant and benign human tissue samples. Once they were up to speed, they proved to be incredibly accurate at identifying the cancerous images.

What’s especially fascinating is that the researchers were able to demonstrate real learning and pattern recognition by the birds. They........

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