Distinctly Montana Magazine

48 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 4 they evidently got caught in there, unable to feed or to escape. Morbidly curious, I looked around the rest of the room. As I looked, one walked off of a high counter in a daze and landed ungracefully on the floor. Another seemed to have tipped over. Dozens littered the floor in various stages of desiccation. If mod- ern pigeons have come to rely on us for food and shelter, this was the other side of the deal. Sometimes the Butte pigeon's proxim- ity to humans proves unlucky. Life for pigeons is short and brutal. Some 35% of pigeons die every year. Most pigeons don't make it out of the nest, succumb- ing to starvation or, in the case of Butte, extreme cold weather. For those that do survive the nest, there isn't a particularly good chance that they'll live long enough to find a mate, or build a nest, or successfully sire offspring. To accommodate for the grim circumstances of their existence, they reproduce like the prover- bial rabbits, laying eggs every two days in the certain knowledge most of them will die. A Butte pigeon has only one mission, though the reasons for it may change over time: eat food. They must consume enough food to continue on in an environment without a reliably long- term food source, and uptown Butte is not a place overrunning with piles of grain and seeds. Luckily, pigeons have developed stomachs that, similar to goats, can turn almost anything into fuel. If someone buys a burrito from La Sirena and discards it on the street in front of the Finlen Hotel (what a waste of a terrific bur- rito!), a pigeon or five can make a meal of it. And if, though this would never happen in a city as perfect as Butte, an inebriated celebrant yacks his lunch into the shrubbery on St. Paddy's Day, a pigeon can eat that, too. Perhaps to complement their iron-clad stomachs, pigeons have only 37 taste buds. We ought not to try their lifestyle, however, as we have 10,000 of the pesky things. Once the pigeon becomes a parent, all of that food serves an- other purpose as well. It goes, oddly enough, toward the produc- tion of milk. A BUTTE PIGEON HAS ONLY ONE MISSION, THOUGH THE REASONS FOR IT MAY CHANGE OVER TIME: EAT FOOD. THEY MUST CONSUME ENOUGH FOOD TO CONTINUE ON IN AN ENVIRONMENT WITHOUT A RELIABLY LONG TERM FOOD SOURCE, AND UPTOWN BUTTE IS NOT A PLACE OVERRUNNING WITH PILES OF GRAIN AND SEEDS.

• Cover