- "I used to raise them before coming here. We used to consult solar charts before our pigeon races."
- ―Radek Zelenka[src]
Pigeons are birds that are native to the planet Earth.
History[]
After the discovery of the coronal mass ejection coming from Lantea's sun, Doctor Radek Zelenka uses homing pigeons as an example of how birds can be affected by magnetic fields. He then reveals that he used to race homing pigeons before coming to Atlantis, surprising everyone. (SGA: "Echoes")
While trapped in an Atlantis transporter with Zelenka during a quarantine lockdown, Colonel Samantha Carter borrows his tablet computer in an attempt to find out what happened and discovers that Zelenka has a picture of a pigeon on his computer. Zelenka explains to Carter that its one of his homing pigeons, amusing Carter who quickly changes images. (SGA: "Quarantine")
After landing on the frozen planet, Zelenka and Major Evan Lorne notice a series of small life-signs in one of Atlantis' towers. A team led by Lorne investigates only to find a flock of pigeons, a few of whom are shot by a startled Marine. Lorne realizes that when Atlantis departed Earth after being there for six months, they raised the Atlantis' shield before takeoff, trapping a flock of pigeons who had made their home in Atlantis. As a result, the pigeons were carried to the Pegasus Galaxy through hyperspace with Atlantis with no one realizing. While the city's biologists worry about introducing pigeons to the ecosystem of the frozen planet, it is decided not to kill them as it could do more harm than good to try. As a result, the frozen planet gains a flock of pigeons amongst its sparse native lifeforms. (SGA: "Echoes", "Quarantine", "The Lost")