RIP Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.30.07
The Passenger Pigeon was once the most common bird in America, perhaps five billion strong. During migration, flocks would be 300 miles long, a mile wide and take days to pass by. Then pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food for slaves and the poor. John James Audubon described a slaughter: "Few Pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of persons, with horses and wagons, guns and ammunition, had already established encampments on the borders. Two farmers from the vicinity of Russelsville, distant more than a hundred miles, had driven upwards of three hundred hogs to be fattened on the pigeons which were to be slaughtered. Here and there, the people employed in plucking and salting what had already been procured, were seen sitting in the midst of large piles of these birds. The dung lay several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the roosting-place."
By the 1850's there were calls to protect the birds but it was useless; the bird only thrived in large numbers and small groups could not breed successfully. Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died on this day 93 years ago in Cincinatti, Ohio. She is now stuffed and at the Smithsonian, but not on display; she should be as a lesson to us all.
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Cincinnati, not Cincinatti.
Thanks,
A Cincinnatian.
Its so sad to see any animal disappear forever.
Here is a crazy story to illustrate the lack of knowledge out there. I work with someone who is pretty "Religious Right", and he honestly didn't believe that humans had ever caused the extinction of a single animal. He thought they were all checking out already, and we just sped up the process.
very sad tale indeed, bringing a population of billions to its death in so short a time. Will anything out there do this to us one day?
The truth is these birds are not yet extinct. I know this is true because I have seen them for myself. In July of 2007 I found a small remnant population of passenger pigeons that are apparantly still breeding here in Pennsylvania. I have photographs that could prove this. I will be collecting more evidence this year. I'm pretty confident that this will be accepted as fact in the near future. As it turns out the story of this species did not end with the death of Martha.