Passenger Pigeons

I have to digress a little bit, back to the Natchez Trace.  There was a stop along the way called "Pigeon Roost".  It was an homage to the Passenger Pigeon, a bird that is extinct.  The forested areas of the Trace were once home to the Passenger Pigeons.

First of all, what is the difference between a Passenger Pigeon and a Carrier Pigeon? A Carrier Pigeon is a domesticated pigeon that can be trained, and was used during the World Wars to carry messages.  They are still used for racing.

A Passenger Pigeon, however, was a wild bird, similar in shape to the mourning dove, only bigger.  It was so numerous at one time that it was estimated there were 5 billion birds, almost 40% of the entire bird population of North American. Their flocks could be miles wide and up to 300 miles long, and so dense they darkened the skies as they passed overhead.  Audubon, traveling in Kentucky in 1813, reported  that a flock passed over his head for three days!

Why are they called Passenger Pigeons?  It is a word derived from a French word meaning migratory (pasage)

Why are they extinct?  Mass deforestation, hunted as food for slaves, hunted for sport, etc.   The population was depleted so quickly, it happened in one generation.  The last identified pigeon in the wild was spotted in 1899.  In 1900, a 14 year old boy saw a strange bird eating grain in the family field.  He went and asked his mother if he could use the shotgun to kill it.  It was in a tree, he got a clean shot, and when it dropped to the ground he took it home.  His parents immediately told him it was a passenger pigeon.  They remembered them from childhood.  They took it to a taxidermist, and many years later, the mother donated it to a museum, where it was officially authenticated to be the last known wild passenger pigeon.    That boy lived  to be 94, and died in 1979.

However, a man had several birds in captivity in a private collection of wild birds.  He donated them to the Cincinnati Zoo,  where they quickly dwindled to two male and one female bird.  The female bird had been hatched in 1885.   The two males died, and the remaining female,  whose name was Martha for George Washington's wife, lived  to be 29 years old.

Her precise time of death was recorded:  12:30 pm on September 1, 1914.  This became the only instance when the exact time and date of a species becoming extinct was precisely recorded.

And the rest of the story:  In early 2013, it was reported that scientists were trying to extract DNA from Martha to try to recreate the Passenger Pigeon.  It has become an iconic study of the extinction of a species and they are hoping they can learn more by resurrecting the species.