I believe that the Coast Guard should train pigeons for sea rescue. Pigeons have a highly-developed ability to identify specific shapes and colors. Experiments conducted in the 1970s and 1980s by Navy scientists Dr. Jim Simmons, showed pigeons to be 93 percent accurate at identifying floating objects, while their human counterparts only achieved 38 percent accuracy.
The Coast Guard training pidgeons for sea rescue would be a wonderful thing. Anything we can do to quickly survey the massive oceans for rescue would be a good thing, The sheer logistics of finding small boats in an ocean so massive means that all the eyes in the sky and all the surveillence equipment won't be enough.
Yes, pigeons were used by the coast guard during the 1970s and 1980s. Pigeons have both better vision and a great field of view than humans making them far more effective at spotting debris or life jackets in the ocean from overhead. In addition they never get eye fatigue or suffer boredom like their human counterparts, making them the perfect animal to aid a search party.
Pigeons are intelligent and have a long history of assisting with communications as well as military operations. Training pigeons for sea rescue tasks could add an important facet to the Coast Guard's arsenal of sea rescue tools. Although the Coast Goard has a number of high-tech ways of dealing with rescues, utilizing the intelligence and skills of pigeons could still be quite helpful.