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The extinction of the passenger pigeon is a poignant example of what happens when the interests of human clash with the interests of nature. Information technology is believed that this species once constituted 25 to 40 per cent of the total bird population of the United States. It is estimated that there were three billion to v billion rider pigeons at the time Europeans discovered America.

Early on explorers and settlers often mentioned passenger pigeons in their writings. Samuel de Champlain in 1605 reported "countless numbers," Gabriel Sagard-Theodat wrote of "space multitudes," and Cotton wool Mather described a flight every bit beingness about a mile in width and taking several hours to laissez passer overhead. Yet by the early 1900s no wild passenger pigeons could be found.

One of the last authenticated records of the capture of a wild bird was at Sargents, Freeway Canton. Ohio, on 24 March 1900. Simply a few birds still survived in captivity at this time. Concerted searches were made and rewards offered for the capture of wild rider pigeons. From 1909 to 1912, the American Ornithologists' Wedlock offered $1,500 to anyone finding a nest or nesting colony of passenger pigeons, but these efforts were futile. Never again would man witness the magnificent jump and fall migratory flights of this swift and graceful bird.

Attempts to salvage the species by breeding the surviving captive birds were not successful. The passenger pigeon was a colonial and gregarious bird and needed big numbers for optimum convenance conditions. Information technology was not possible to reestablish the species with a few convict birds. The small captive flocks weakened and died.

The last known private of the passenger pigeon species was "Martha" (named afterward Martha Washington). She died at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, and was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where her torso was once mounted in a display case with this notation:

MARTHA

Final of her species, died at 1 p.m.,
1 September 1914, historic period 29, in the
Cincinnati Zoological Garden.
EXTINCT

See a 360 Degree View of Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon.

The passenger pigeons or wild pigeon belongs to the club Columbiformes. Its scientific name isEctopistes migratorius.Ectopistes means "moving virtually or wandering," andmigratorius means "migrating." The scientific name carries the connotation of a bird that not only migrates in the spring and fall, but one that too moves about from season to season to select the nigh favorable environment for nesting and feeding.

The physical appearance of the bird was commensurate with its flight characteristics of grace, speed, and maneuverability. The caput and neck were small; the tail long and wedge-shaped, and the wings, long and pointed, were powered by big breast muscles that gave the-capability for prolonged flight. The average length of the male person was about 16½ inches. The female person was about an inch shorter.

The head and upper parts of the male dove were a articulate blueish greyness with black streaks on the scapulars and wing coverts. Patches of pinkish iridescence at the sides of the throat changed in color to a shining metal bronze, green, and purple at the back of the cervix. The lower pharynx and breast were a soft rose, gradually shading to white on the lower abdomen. The irides were bright red; the bill pocket-size, black and slender; the anxiety and legs a articulate lake red.

The colors of the female person were duller and paler. Her head and back were a brownish grey, the iridescent patches of the throat and back of the neck were less bright, and the breast was a pale cinnamon-rose color.

The mourning dove,Zenaidura macroura, closest relative of the passenger pigeon,Ectopistes migratorius resembles the passenger pigeon in shape and coloring. This has often led to mistaken identification and imitation reports of passenger pigeons long after they became extinct.

The mourning dove is smaller and less brightly colored than the passenger pigeon. The iris of the adult mourning dove is dark brown; that of the adult male passenger pigeon was bright red, and the female's was orange. The adult mourning dove has a small black spot on its throat below and behind its ear. The passenger pigeon lacked this spot. When rise in flying, the mourning pigeon makes a whistling sound with its wings, whereas the passenger pigeon did not.

The juveniles-of the mourning dove and passenger dove resembled each other more closely than did the adults. The young mourning dove does not have the black spot on its neck. The iris of the young rider pigeon was a hazel color.

The range of the passenger pigeon in its migrations was from central Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia south to the uplands of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Only a few birds were ever reported as far west as the Dakotas.

The master nesting area was in the region of the Great Lakes and east to New York. The principal wintering sites stretched from Arkansas to North Carolina south to the uplands of the Gulf Coast states.

The habitat of the rider pigeon was mixed hardwood forests. The birds depended on the huge forests for their spring nesting sites, for winter "roosts," and for food. The mainstays of the passenger dove's diet were beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, seeds, and berries found in the forests. Worms and insects supplemented the diet in jump and summertime.

In the winter the birds established "roosting" sites in the forests of the southern states. Each "roost" often had such tremendous numbers of birds so crowded and massed together that they oftentimes bankrupt the limbs of the copse by their weight. In the morning the birds flew out in large flocks scouring the countryside for food. At night they returned to the roosting area. Their scolding and chattering as they settled down for the night could be heard for miles. When the nutrient supply became depleted or the weather condition weather agin, the birds would institute a new roosting area in a more favorable location.

The migratory flights of the passenger pigeon were spectacular. The birds flew at an estimated speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. Observers reported the sky was darkened past huge flocks that passed overhead. These flights oft continued from morn until night and lasted for several days.

The time of the bound migration depended on weather conditions. Small flocks sometimes arrived in the northern nesting areas as early on as February, only the main migration occurred in March and April. The nesting sites were established in forest areas that had a sufficient supply of food and water available inside daily flying range.

Since no accurate data were recorded on the passenger pigeon, it is but possible to give estimates on the size and population of these nesting areas. A single site might embrace many thousands of acres and the birds were and then congested in these areas that hundreds of nests could be counted in a single tree. A large nesting in Wisconsin was reported as covering 850 square miles, and the number of birds nesting there was estimated at 136,000,000.

The nests were loosely constructed of small-scale sticks and twigs and were near a pes in diameter. A single, white, elongated egg was laid per nesting. The incubation period was from twelve to 14 days. Both parents shared the duties of incubating the egg and feeding the young.

The young bird was naked and blind when born, but grew and developed rapidly. When feathered it was like in color to that of the woman, but its feathers were tipped with white, giving it a scaled appearance. It remained in the nest about 14 days, being fed and cared for by the parent birds. By this time it had grown large and plump and usually weighed more than than either of its parents. It had adult plenty to take care of itself and soon fluttered to the ground to hunt for its food.

Regime differ as to how many times the passenger pigeon nested in a flavor. The general stance was that the birds commonly nested twice in a flavour, but this tin can neither be proved nor disproved since no authentic records of nestings were made.

During the late summer the flocks of rider pigeons ofttimes moved about at random in the northern forests in search of food, only as fall approached and temperature changes became sharp the flocks of passenger pigeons began their migration to the southern wintering areas.

Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its beingness. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated past shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. Even so, this did non seem to seriously diminish the full number of birds.

The notable subtract of passenger pigeons started when professional hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell in the urban center markets. Although the birds always had been used as nutrient to some extent, even by the Indians, the real slaughter began in the 1800s.

At that place were no laws restricting the number of pigeons killed or the manner they were taken. Considering the birds were communal in addiction, they were easily netted by using baited traps and decoys. The birds were shot at the nesting sites, immature squabs were knocked out of nests with long sticks, and pots of burning sulphur were placed under the roosting trees so the fumes would daze the birds and they would fall to the basis. Hundreds of thousands of passenger pigeons were killed for private consumption and for sale on the marketplace, where they often sold for as little as fifty cents a dozen.

By 1850 the destruction of the pigeons was in full strength, and past 1860 it was noticed that the numbers of birds seemed to be decreasing, but still the slaughter connected.

One of the last big nestings of passenger pigeons occurred at Petoskey, Michigan, in.1878. Here 50,000 birds per day were killed and this rate connected for almost five months. When the adult birds that survived this massacre attempted second nestings at new sites, they were soon located by the professional person hunters and killed before they had a chance to raise any young.

The concerned voices of conservationists had piddling effect in stopping the slaughter. Finally a nib was passed in the Michigan legislature making it illegal to net pigeons within ii miles of a nesting area, but the police force was weakly enforced and few arrests were made for violations.

By the early 1890s the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared. It was now too tardily to protect them by passing laws. In 1897 a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a ten-year closed season on passenger pigeons. This was a completely futile gesture as the birds even so surviving, every bit lone individuals, were too few to reestablish the species.

The passenger pigeon'south technique of survival had been based on mass tactics. There had been safety in its large flocks which often numbered hundreds of thousands of birds. When a flock of this size established itself in an area, the number of local creature predators (such as wolves, foxes, weasels, and hawks) was so small compared to the total number of birds that little harm could exist inflicted on the flock as a whole.

This colonial way of life became very dangerous when human being became a predator on the flocks. When the birds were massed together, specially at a nesting site, it was piece of cake for man to slaughter them in such huge numbers that there were not enough birds left to successfully reproduce the species.

The interests of civilization, with its forest immigration and farming, were diametrically opposed to the interests of the birds which needed the huge forests to survive. The passenger pigeons could not conform themselves to existing in small flocks. When their interests clashed with the interests of man, culture prevailed. The wanton slaughter of the birds only sped up the process of extinction. The converting of forests to farmland would accept eventually doomed the passenger dove.

The i valuable upshot of the extinction of the passenger pigeon was that information technology angry public interest in the demand for strong conservation laws. Because these laws were put into effect, we take saved many other species of our migratory birds and wildlife.

Prepared by the Department of Vertebrate Zoology,
National Museum of Natural History in cooperation with Public Enquiry Services, Smithsonian Institution
ev. iii/01

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