How carrier pigeons were once the backbone of lighthouse families

Pigeons were once used as communication between Tasmania’s remote island lighthouses and the Tasmanian mainland, but occasionally this communication failed. Sometimes tragically.

There are 25 lighthouses on some of the 334 islands surrounding Tasmania, and for many years the only way for keepers to communicate with the Tasmanian mainland was to flag down passing vessels.

That was except for two gale-lashed islands, Tasman and Maatsukyer, where lighthouse keepers had homing pigeons for communication.

Though this too was a fraught and unreliable method of communication.

Don Mitchell was three…