Nikola Tesla famously cared for a pigeon in his later years. He regularly walked through New York parks to feed pigeons and also fed them from his hotel-room window, nursing injured birds back to health.
Tesla described one particular injured white pigeon as especially important to him. He claimed the bird visited him daily and that he loved it deeply. When it broke a wing and a leg, Tesla reportedly spent more than $2,000 caring for it and even built a special device to help it heal comfortably.
His pigeon habit became so extensive that it contributed to practical problems. At the St. Regis Hotel, complaints about pigeon mess, combined with Tesla's unpaid bills, helped lead to his eviction in 1923. The story is sometimes exaggerated into claims that Tesla kept a pigeon as an ordinary household pet; more accurately, he formed an intense attachment to pigeons and cared for them regularly. Tesla died in 1943 at the Hotel New Yorker, where he occupied room 3327.