David Attenborough’s new Secret Garden documentaries, which focus on the wildlife in our very own backyard, show just how important unremarkable-seeming species like damselflies and urban foxes are to the natural world. Speaking to HuffPost UK, an ecologist at ecological consultancy firm Arbtech said that it’s time to rethink the role of much-maligned feral pigeons, too. “Feral pigeons have filled an ecological hole caused by the decline and absence of many other species that cannot survive in an urban environment,” they said. Given our history of domesticating, then abandoning, the birds, the ecologist added, we owe them more than our current disdain. We relied on pigeons for thousands of years Pigeons “have been among the oldest domesticated species by humans, dating back thousands of years,” the spokesperson told us. Feral species are descendants of the rock dove. That shows in their nesting habits: their wilder relatives “are cliff nesters, nesting in crevices, with poor nest construction, and the feral pigeon likes cities as the ledges and hiding places mimic those cliff top habitats their ancestors …