![]() In our time we protect (if we do) the threatened and the endangered species, but as we see, it’s the common species, the ones we take for granted, who’ve been driven to extinction by the thoughtless machine that grips us. The American Buffalo ( Bison bison), Eskimo Curlew ( Numenius borealis), Great Auk ( Pinguinus impennis), Carolina Parakeet ( Conuropsis carolinensis) – each of these species were once common, some so common that it was inconceivable at the time that they could ever be threatened with extinction. Our world is so much emptier now, we can barely imagine this – yet these stories are largely true. We hear these stories and wonder what they could mean. Now the skies are filled with satellites, aircraft and far too many parts per million and the forests are shattered.įor North Americans born in the 20th or 21st centuries, our childhoods are filled with stories of the days when this or that species was so abundant that you could walk across the river on their backs, or it took days for the flock to pass, or the herd stretched from horizon to horizon, or the sun was darkened by their shadow. Numbering in the billions these beautiful and highly social birds filled the skies and the dense deciduous forests of the East. 100 years before the death of this last female, the Passenger Pigeon may have been the most numerous bird species on the planet. After 100 years, Passenger Pigeons are just beginning to be extinct. As the bumper sticker reminds us, extinction is forever. Nesting Habits of The Passenger Pigeon - by Dr.On September 1, 1914, The last known Passenger Pigeon ( Ectopistes migratorius), who had been given the name Martha by the Cincinnati Zoo, died in captivity. The Passenger Pigeon in Confinement - by Ruthven Deane in The Auk What Became of the Wild Pigeon? by Sullivan Cook in Field and StreamĪ Novel Theory of Extinction by C.H. Netting the Pigeons - by William Brewster in The AukĮfforts to Check the Slaughter by Prof. The Passenger Pigeon - from Life Histories of N. The Wild Pigeon of North America - by Chief Pokagon in The Chautauquan The Passenger Pigeon - from Ornithological Biography by John James Audubon The Passenger Pigeon - from American Ornithology by Alexander Wilson On September 1, 1914, just seven years after Mershon's book was published, the last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo. They are just beginning to learn the need of economy in the use of that which Nature has flung at their feet." (from the Introduction to The Passenger Pigeon by William B. They were slain by the millions during the middle of the last century, and from one region in Michigan in one year three million Passenger Pigeons were killed for market. It is hard for us of an older generation to realize that as recently as 1880 the Passenger Pigeon was thronging in countless millions through large areas of the Middle West. I am merely a business man who is interested in the Passenger Pigeon because he loves the outdoors and its wild things, and sincerely regrets the cruel extinction of one of the most interesting natural phenomena of his own country. "For the last three years I have spent most of my leisure time in collecting as much material as possible which might help to throw light on the oft-repeated query, 'What has become of the wild pigeons?'. Download cover art Download CD case insert The Passenger Pigeon
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