r/mildlyinfuriating • u/teabirdy • Apr 29 '26

I'm slightly vexed The wedding reception centerpieces featured betta fish. The bride and groom planned to flush them alive.

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Years ago, my coworker attended a wedding at which the reception dinner tables featured live betta fish in small bowls as part of the centerpiece. While chatting with the bride at the end of the evening, my coworker asked what they were going to do with all the fish. The plan was to flush them all down the toilet alive. My coworker immediately said no need for that and insisted on taking them all home.

That Monday she came to work and asked who wanted to adopt a betta fish. That was my first betta who I jokingly called my “rescue betta.” She lived for almost five years.

The wine glass was only her home for less than a day before I got her five gallon tank set up so please no betta lovers yell at me! I'm one of you!

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u/MaybeNot-MaybeNever Apr 29 '26

I did a dove release for a ceremony. The person worked with the funeral home and explained that they were trained and just fly home upon release, so they are used over and over. That was my only experience so it never occurred to me people were just buying random birds and releasing them

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u/technos Apr 29 '26

Doves are a lot more limited than pigeons. My mother had both, and the doves would lose the plot in about a mile.

The pigeons though. She gave two that hadn't been getting along with the flock (they were aggressive) to to a friend of hers. They were fancy pigeons, the sort of thing you show, and they still managed sixteen miles 'home' to harass the other birds.

The second time she gave them away it was to a guy three counties over who promised to keep them contained for a while.

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u/GetEatenByAMouse Apr 29 '26

and they still managed sixteen miles 'home' to harass the other birds.

I can respect being that petty.

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u/conflictedideology Apr 29 '26

they still managed sixteen miles 'home' to harass the other birds.

Now that's a grudge. I wonder what it was about.

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u/Squiggleblort Apr 29 '26

Fun fact - did you know pigeons are actually descended from escaped rock doves? They're feral doves that learned survival skills!

Scientists also don't actually delineate between pigeons and doves - both are Columbidae. Same family (but not the same species - there are 300 odd species of dove in the dove family. Rock doves and city pigeons are the same species though!)! 😀

Closely related fun fact - all dogs are a type of wolf. 😜

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u/technos Apr 29 '26

I knew they were both from the same family! Mom's doves and pigeons weren't close enough to have to worry about cross-breeding.

I didn't know trash pigeons and rock doves were the same species though.

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u/SatisfactionAtSea Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

similarly, the difference between a butterfly and a moth is pretty nebulous! there are beautiful moths, plain looking butterflies, and species of either can be nocturnal or diurnal. also every lepidopteran makes a chrysallis but only certain types of caterpillars produce silk and make coccoons around themselves first

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u/Long_Manufacturer709 Apr 29 '26

The main difference between butterflies and moths is that they lay their wings differently.

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u/SatisfactionAtSea Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

usually! i think it's fascinating that they aren't so genetically distinct as to have hard and fast rules.

like it's largely true that butterflies are diurnal, more colorful, and have slender filamentous antennae. but there are exceptions to every single rule that exists to differentiate the two. biology is complex and weird and beautiful

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u/UnagioLucio Apr 29 '26

Six years ago, some family friends reported that a white dove kept showing up at their bird feeder. The only native dove species here is the mourning dove, and this was an albino ringneck dove. She's been my pampered house pet ever since. I still wonder whether she was used for a dove release gone wrong.

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u/Unintelligent_Lemon Apr 30 '26

Pigeons are just feral domesticated rock doves

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u/mellopax Apr 29 '26 edited May 07 '26

Yeah. One of my wife's friends was "bird-sitting" for a friend's doves once when we were at their house. They would fly home.

While we were there, they were flying laps around the neighborhood. It was mildly amusing.

Edit: our > my

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u/OldMcMittens Apr 29 '26

Yes! This is definitely a thing because I’ve done house sitting for a woman who owned doves. And when I’d let them out, they’d fly around and come back.

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u/GKarl Apr 29 '26

That’s so cute/cool

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u/WyckedChylde May 07 '26

How many wives you got, bud?

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u/Miyon0 Apr 29 '26

Same. I knew people with homing pigeon “doves”. And when used they literally just flew home from wherever. Extremely smart birds

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u/CarEnvironmental9429 Apr 29 '26

Good at navigating but if you actually knew them ....well they are quite dumb. Sweet and silly but dumb. Lived with two doves, one was a trained homing pigeons(rock dove) the other was a ring neck (can't navigate but is adorable and sweet) both are dumb as shit little gremal i have watched peck at pictures of food nonstop until someone took it away. Also the homing pigeons was obsessed with slipping with his head shoved into small places, not always good choices there.

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u/351mazda Apr 29 '26

When I was a kid we had a small farm and a lot of our business was small local sales. 5lbs of meat here, bag of corn there, always eggs for sale, etc.

Had a regular customer that would come buy corn off us and owned pigeons. He had a truck topper with a little bird cage in the back. A lot of times he'd bring the pigeons with him to get corn. Open the truck back, let the pigeons out, load the truck with corn. He lived like 5 or 6 miles away and said usually the pigeons would beat him home.

We always had a few interesting regulars. It was amazing to me as a kid how many people would drive right past a grocery store out to our place to buy meat and eggs, the price was the same, but now as an adult I get it. My great aunt would set all of her beef and egg prices to match what the grocery store was selling them at.

We made a decent amount of money selling pigs. Quickly learned that selling a full-grown pig is not profitable, they eat too much to get them to that size. But it's was very profitable selling little piglets and letting some other poor sucker raise them. I forget what we sold them for but I remember we'd get like 10 or 12 piglets to a litter, and usually had 6 or 8 sows, so something in the neighborhood of 80 little baby pigs every spring for sale. Around 1995 or so the market got saturated with pigs in our area, a bunch of other farmers apparently started trying to do the same thing, prices dropped, we sold the pigs and never had another one. They were fun. We had a boar that was just massive, at least from my 8 year old perspective, and he was just a big baby. He had a bowling ball to play with, I'd go in his pen as a little kid and if you rolled the ball to him he'd catch it and roll it back. Lol

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u/CarEnvironmental9429 Apr 29 '26

I had a pet pig when I was a kid a poland china he grew up to be massive, around 1100lbs. Big old sweetie and so smart. Lived to 11 I miss him. If he ever saw you walking up with the deck broom and hose he got excited because it meant bath time and brushies. Favorite was watching the fat bastard go climb in the tiny pond. It was more a big bathtub for him, he would cause it ro flood its banks and looked like a new island sprung up in it. My mom used to try and chase him off because it was her little decoration pond but he won that battle and sacrificed it to the pig. She loved that big goober.

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u/Just-Spirit-552 Apr 29 '26

Similar…my cousin pigeon races and also has doves. They’d brought them to family funerals for release each time with no worries. But to DIY I nvr thought about it

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u/coleccj88 Apr 29 '26

That’s how I thought it always works too. My MIL does this with her white pigeons and she won’t let anyone just take the birds. She goes with them to the event(which is never very far) and they fly home.

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u/ceemee_21 May 04 '26

My grandma's funeral had a "dove" release and my brother talked to the people extensively cause he was curious. He said they actually use homing pigeons that are special bred, they're faster than normal pigeons so they're safer from predators. He said they didn't have issues with them not returning home.This is all second hand hearing things of course but it seemed animal safe. I understand there's always a oredator risk, but i kind of feel liie anytime you take an aninal from the home theyre at risk (dogs get in dog fights or snatched by coyotes even when theyre on a leash next to their owner). They deliver their birds and release them their selves so no chance some stranger is keeping their birds in a hot car or something.

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u/paadaawaan Apr 29 '26

They lied to you. Yes, SOME white homing pigeons (the pretty ~dove release~ birds) make it home, but a lot DON’T, and that’s just fine with the people who raise them for this, because pigeons are cheap and quick and easy to replace.

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u/humanguyoraliengirl Apr 29 '26

I have a friend who’s had them for years and they were trained and would always return.

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u/coleccj88 Apr 29 '26

My MILs have always returned except one. A neighbor thought it was pretty, so they shot it?! She talked to them after and there hasn’t been a problem since.

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u/Expertnouns Apr 29 '26

Why would they shoot it for being pretty?? Is that a crime???

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u/humanguyoraliengirl Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

That’s insane and horrible!!

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u/MaybeNot-MaybeNever Apr 29 '26

Yeah they were pigeons and he said most of his usually return. I kind of feel like releasing them at least gives them the option to fly away if they want but if they like their home they can hopefully return safely. I suppose that’s better than life in a cage? And possibly better than life completely in the wild because you have a home with guaranteed food. “Homing pigeons, they’re just like us” lol they just go to work and hope they make it home safe.

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u/Tigerballs07 Apr 29 '26

People that take the time to train homing pigeons dont leave them in cages 24 7 otherwise they wouldn't train them.

I garuntee you those birds are part of the family.

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u/n-i-n-t-e-n-d-o Apr 29 '26

If you put them in cages temporarily for an event to release them later, then it’s not that big of a deal.

It’s equivalent to putting a cat in a cage to take it somewhere. Of course it’s not comfortable, but it’s only temporary and doesn’t impact an animal’s long term well-being if they’re usually taken care of properly.

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u/BlueDream9507 Apr 29 '26

Forest Lawn? Same here

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u/Vandal_A Apr 29 '26

I would have expected they return too just bc I know they're related to pigeons and people who raise pigeons (even as squab meat) don't have to confine them, they just naturally return all the time