Karine Princé and Frédéric Jiguet, February 5, 2018 (updated Nov 24, 2020)

This repository contains data and codes associated with a paper we publish in 2019 entitled Urban pigeons losing toes due to human activities (PDF here). In this study we tested the hypothesis that the occurrence and extent of toes mutilations in feral pigeons (Columba livia) could be related to the level of organic pollutants at the local scale in urban environments.

Data on feral pigeons were collected as records on the state of pigeon toes on both legs at various local patches in a large city, Paris (France), during spring 2013.

Data on local environmental conditions were extracted from various online databases (sources can be found in the paper). We developed a first set of predictors to inform the local frequentation by humans, as the inhabitant density and the number of people frequenting underground stations. A second set of variables was assumed to capture variations in potential organic pollution, reporting the number of open-street food markets, the number of bakery and the quantity of refuses evacuated by collectors. A final set of variables is related to air pollution, considering various gas and particles concentrations in the air, and to noise pollution, related to the density of car traffic.

Jiguet, F., L. Sunnen, A.-C.Prévot, and K. Princé. 2019. Urban pigeons loosing toes due to human activities. Biological Conservation, 240, 108241.

This code was developped in R version 3.4.4 (2018-03-15). This code is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0.