Hitting the Books: During World War II, even our pigeons joined the fight

In the years leading up to, and through, World War II, animal behaviorist researchers thoroughly embraced motion picture technology as a means to better capture the daily experiences of their test subjects -- whether exploring the nuances of contemporary chimpanzee society or running macabre rat-eat-rat survival experiments to determine the Earth's "carrying capacity." However, once the studies had run their course, much of that scientific content was simply shelved. In his new book, The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life, Seattle University Assistant Professor of Film Studies Dr. Ben Schultz-Figueroa, pulls these historic archives out of the vacuum of academic research to examine how they have influenced America's scientific and moral compasses since. In the excerpt below, Schultz-Figueroa recounts the Allied war effort to guide precision aerial munitions towards their targets using live pigeons as onboard targeting reticles. Excerpted from The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life by Ben Schultz-Figueroa, published by the University of California Press.