Most people's relationship with pigeons is pretty simple.

People tend to see them as these annoying birds that want to come and each of crumbs

get too close, maybe poop on your car.

I happen to like pigeons.

I think they're strangely beautiful and one roosted outside of my window once and I got

to see it feed its little hatchlings and I don't know.

I find them strange in charming birds, which is, in fact, how people used to feel about

them.

Because hundreds of years ago, in Iran, the relationship between man and pigeon was actually

quite cooperative, symbiotic even.

Humans gave pigeons food in a place to rest and pigeons in turn contributed to the nearby

farms.

And although a lot has changed since then, this unique human pigeon rapport continues to

provide inspiration, even today.

You could kind of start imagining a society that has a very different relationship with

animals where it's no longer like, you know, there's human society and there's animals

that are separate from us.

You could start kind of imagining a very different world than the one we have now.

I'm Dylan Thoris and this is Alice Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

And today, we are going to Isfahan, Iran and we will learn the history of these incredible

now defunct structures called pigeon towers.

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