ITotD: Passenger Pigeons / The great American extinction |
Passenger Pigeons / The great American extinction Posted: 19 Aug 2016 12:00 AM PDT I have a confession to make. Even though my wife, Morgen, is an endless fount of interesting topics, when she suggested that I write about passenger pigeons, my first reaction was a yawn. How interesting can pigeons be? There are bazillions of them out there—I practically trip over them walking down the sidewalk every day. “But passenger pigeons are extinct,” she said. So are lots of animals, and that’s very sad, but it still doesn’t make them particularly interesting to the general public. She kept insisting that no, really, this particular kind of extinct pigeon is truly fascinating, and I kept displaying a complete lack of enthusiasm. Finally, she started reading some facts off a Web page. After the first couple of items, I thought, “Yeah, OK, that’s a bit interesting, but if that’s all there is to it…” Only it wasn’t. She kept reading—and I kept saying “Wow.” Even I had to admit, yes, the story of the passenger pigeon is quite interesting. So by way of penance, allow me to present the poop (as it were) on passenger pigeons. The last passenger pigeon in the world died less than 100 years ago—in 1914, according to most reports. In fact, we know exactly when and where the species went extinct: Tuesday, September 1, 1914, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time at the Cincinnati Zoo. We even know the last bird’s name: Martha. She was 29 years old. It’s rather extraordinary that we should have such detailed and precise information about the moment when a species meets its demise—the passenger pigeon is almost certainly unique in that regard. What’s even more extraordinary is that just a century or so earlier, passenger pigeons had been more numerous than any other bird in North America—numbering in the billions. Passage and Failure Passenger pigeons, a relative of the Mourning Dove, were remarkable in several respects. They could fly very fast—upwards of 60 mph (about 100kph)—though they did not use this speed for hunting; they ate mostly nuts, seeds, and berries. They were extremely social animals that liked to live and travel in large groups at all times. A roosting colony could comprise well over 100,000,000 birds and cover more than 800 square miles (2000 sq km) of forest, with as many as 100 nests per tree. When a flock migrated, it moved in an almost solid unit that could stretch for 300 miles (500 km); observers frequently remarked that they darkened the sky for days at a time. Around the beginning of the 16th century, passenger pigeons may have constituted as much as 40% of the bird population of the United States—up to 5 billion individuals—and, according to some estimates, were in fact the most numerous bird on Earth. So Much for Safety in Numbers By the mid-1800s, the number of passenger pigeons was already dwindling noticeably, but this only increased the rate at which they were destroyed—sometimes as many as tens of thousands per day for months on end. Even though conservationists raised an alarm, very little was done to stop the hunting. Some researchers believe it wouldn’t have mattered by that point; since the birds seemed to require very large colonies for successful breeding, their population may already have dipped below a sustainable level before anyone realized there was a problem. In any case, the very rarity of the passenger pigeon by the late 1800s seemed to increase hunters’ determination to find just one more. The last known wild passenger pigeons were shot in 1900, but a few may have survived longer. One story I read from the early 1900s was truly chilling: a hunter who’d believed the passenger pigeon was already extinct suddenly spotted one years later. He was excited and nervous, because he realized that this would be the last chance anyone would ever have to kill one. So he took his shot and did it in. Apparently he told the story with a great deal of pride. A few passenger pigeons remained in captivity after that, but all attempts to breed them failed. Martha, who had been named after Martha Washington, was the last living member of her species; her remains were on display at the Smithsonian for many years afterward. Even after Martha died, unconfirmed reports of passenger pigeon sightings appeared occasionally until at least 1930. But now the species is known definitively to be extinct, and North Americans will never again see anything like their great migrations. Had we exterminated, say, all the world’s cockroaches instead, I think there would be less to mourn. But that implacable impulse to destroy every last one of some creature is, I’m afraid, still a very troubling part of human nature. —Joe Kissell Permalink • Email this Article • Categories: History, Science & Nature, Society & Culture More Information about Passenger Pigeons...For more information about the passenger pigeon, see:
You may occasionally see remarks like Passenger pigeons not extinct! (in Science Frontiers). To clear up any potential confusion, this is a joke. They’re talking about regular pigeons acting as “passengers” on trains, ships, and so on. Related Articles from Interesting Thing of the Day
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