Bring your bird to work
This photo shows a man who works in a coal mine (a miner) and he’s holding a small cage with a canary bird inside. Canaries used to go to work with miners every day. Their job was simple: to detect what the men couldn’t…deadly carbon monoxide gas.
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
Carbon monoxide is invisible. You can’t smell it or taste it. It can sneak into the air, silently, without you even knowing. CO is poisonous and can make us very sick. If there is a lot of it in the air, it can kill us. Because it is so dangerous, it’s important to know as soon as possible when it’s in the air so we can hurry and get outside to fresh air.
Protecting the miners
Every morning the miners took the canaries down into the mine with them, and every night when their shift was over, they took them home. Many of the miners were very attached to their birds and treated them as pets ♥
Staying CO safe inside of a mine
Can you imagine relying on a little bird to make sure your air was safe all the way down inside of a mine? It was dangerous work for both the canaries and the miners. The miners had to keep a close watch on the canaries for any warning signs of trouble with the air.
If CO invaded the air, the canary would stop singing; it might even fall off its perch. Luckily there were special rescue cages like this one that had an oxygen cylinder attached. The cage could be closed up with the canary inside, and the oxygen from the cylinder would revive the canary and keep it safe while both the miner and the canary escaped outside to fresh air.
Lifesaving CO Alarms
Thankfully the days of using canaries as CO alarms are over. However, dangerous carbon monoxide is still around and can invade our air when we least expect it. Remember, we have no way of knowing it’s there, so we need CO alarms to alert us if it gets into our air.To learn more about CO alarms and where to have them in your home, visit the Alarms page.
If you’d like to know more about the brave canaries who worked in the mines, check out these links:
What Happended to the Canary in the Coal Mine?
Canaries in Coal Mines: Their Role and Importance
How Did the CAnary Come to Be Associated With Coal Mines? – History Facts
Photo credit: Pixabay, Museum of Cannock Chase (UK), U.S. Bureau of Mines, Science & Industry Museum (UK)