Pigeons may be good bio indicators of high lead concentration in New York City. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Amy Zimmer

New York City doesn't get a canary for its coal mine.

It gets a pigeon.

A study published this week in the journal Chemosphere found a correlation between elevated blood-lead levels in pigeons and those in children living in Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side. Its conclusions suggest that the birds can be used to assess the location and extent of lead contamination in any given area in the U.S. and possibly circumvent its negative impacts.

Principal author Rebecca Calisi, formerly an assistant biology professor at Barnard College, and her student Fayme Cai looked at data collected from 825 feral pigeons with suspected lead poisoning in 13 New York City neighborhoods from 2011 through 2015. They compared it to data from New York City Department of Health screenings of children younger than 18 for blood-lead levels higher than 10 micrograms per deciliter.

Their research found that the mean blood-lead levels in pigeons brought to the city's only wildlife rehabilitation center, the Wild Bird Fund, fluctuated with the seasons in the same way that blood-lead levels in children did: blood-lead levels were higher in summer than in fall or winter. The rates of birds and children with elevated blood-lead levels were higher in lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side than other New York City neighborhoods.

The number of children in New York City with lead poisoning has declined 80 percent since 2002, according to the Health Department, but a 2006 study found that about 90 percent of all dust samples taken throughout the five boroughs exceeded the federal government's standards for acceptable lead concentration in the environment and housing. In the city, the toxic metal can be found in and released from paint in old buildings, in gravel and soil, and water pipes.

Lead poisoning is associated with damage to the brain and other organs. Exposure to lead is especially dangerous for small children, potentially disrupting their cognitive functions and causing behavioral problems.

Lead is deadly for pigeons, too. Sure, they tend to poop all over the buildings and streets where they nest in this city, but it's their close relationship with human New Yorkers that make them so useful in the case of identifying sites of lead toxicity.

"The urban pigeon does not only walk the same pavement and live on the same blocks as humans, it also breathes the same air and often eats the same food," says the study, first reported by the New York Times. "In this situation, the pigeon can serve as the proverbial canary in a coal mine."

Speaking to the Times, Health Department Press Secretary Christopher Miller called the parallel between feral pigeons and proverbial canaries "a stretch" because the city already had a “robust” system for evaluating lead exposure.

Still, we think the study, the conclusions of which may apply across the country, delivers poetic justice here in the Big Apple: the pigeon isn't the hero we wished for, but it's the hero we deserve.