The American Passenger Pigeon-Extinct
(Ectopistses Migratorius)
An American Holocaust-- first mass mechanized extermination of an entire species
How was this possible for a desirable native
American bird numbered in the billions? The True Story. [Original Essay, "PASSENGER PIGEON:Ectopistses Migratorius (Linnaeus)"
by Edward Howe Forbush in "Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds". Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture. Reprinted in Birds of America. T. Gilbert
Pearson, Editor-in-chief, Copyright 1917, by The University Society
Inc.; Copyright, 1936, by Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., pages
39-46. {edited for this site}]. Nest and Eggs -- Nest: Before its extermination,
nested in myriad, in the extensive forests sometimes fifty or more
of their frail structures of twigs seen in a single. tree. EGGS: l
or 2, pure white. Unbelievable Numbers The Passenger Pigeon was described by Linne in the latter part of
the 18th century; but was well known in America many years before.
In July, 1605, on the coast of Maine, in latitude 43o25', Champlains
saw on some islands an "infinite number of pigeons," of which he took
a great quantity. Many early historians, who write of the birds of
the Atlantic coast region, mention the Pigeons. The Jesuit Fathers,
in their first narratives of Acadia, state that the birds were fully
as abundant as the fish, and that in their seasons the Pigeons overloaded
the trees. Passing from Nova Scotia to Florida, we find that Stork
(1766)asserts that they were in such plenty there for three months
of the year that an account of them would seem incredible. John Lawson
(1790), in his History of Carolina, speaks of prodigious flocks of
Pigeons in 1701-02, which broke down trees in the woods where they
roosted, and cleared away all the food in the country before them,scarcely
leaving one acorn on the ground.. The early settlers in Virginia found
the Pigeons in winter "beyond number or imagination." The Plymouth
colony was threatened with famine in 1643, when great flocks of Pigeons
swept down upon the ripened corn and beat down and ate "a very great
quantity of all sorts of English grain". But Winthrop says that in
1648 they came again after the harvest was gathered, and proved a
great blessing, "it being incredible what multitudes of them were
killed daily." John Audubon, the Naturalist Audubon states that in the autumn of 1813 he left his house at Henderson,
on the banks of the Ohio, a few miles from Hardensburgh, to go to
Louisville, Ky.. Nesting Sites Astonishing Their winter roosting places almost defy description. Audubon rode
through one on the banks of the Green River in Kentucky for more than
forty miles, crossing it in different directions, and found its average
width to be rather more than three miles.... HOW DID THE IMPOSSIBLE
HAPPEN ?? When the white man appeared on this continent, conditions rapidly
changed. Practically all the early settlers were accustomed to the
use of firearms; and whenever Pigeons appeared in great numbers, the
inhabitants armed themselves with guns,clubs, stones, poles, and whatever
could be used to destroy the birds. The most destructive implement
was the net, to which the birds were attracted by bait, and under
which vast numbers of them were trapped. Gunners baited the birds
with grain. Dozens of birds sometimes were killed thus at a single
shot. In one case seventy-one birds were killed by two shots. A single
shot from the old flint-lock, single-barreled gun, fired into a tree,
sometimes would procure a back load of pigeons. Still, people read of the "mysterious" disappearance of the Passenger
Pigeon, wonder what caused it, and say that it never has been satisfactorily
explained. The New York market alone would take 100 barrels a day
for weeks without a break in price. Chicago, St. Louis, Boston and
all the great and little cities of the North and East joined in the
demand. Need we wonder why the pigeons have vanished? There were many smaller nestings for years after the Petoskey nesting
of 1878, for the reason that the birds at three large breeding places
in other States or regions were driven out by persecution, and joined
the Petoskey group. After this the birds exhibited a tendency to scatter
to regions where they were least molested.. {There
still were to have been two great nestings in Michigan in 1881.}
Gone Forever -- September
1, 1914 ...No adequate attempt to protect them was made until they practically
had disappeared. Whenever a law looking toward the conservation of
these birds was proposed in any State, its opponents argued before
the legislative committees that the Pigeons "needed no protection";
that their numbers were so vast, and that they ranged over such a
great extent of country, that they were simply able to take care of
themselves. This argument defeated all measures that might have given
adequate protection to this species.That is why extinction finally
came quickly. We did our best to exterminate both old and young,and
we succeeded. The explanation is so simple that all talk of "mystery"
seems sadly out of place here.... PASSENGER PIGEON
Ectopistses Migratorius(Linnaeus)
Other Names -- Wild Pigeon, Wood Pigeon, Red-breasted
Pigeon,Blue-headed Pigeon
General Description -- Length, 17 inches. Prevailing
color above, grayish-blue; below, reddish-fawn. Tail, very long and
graduated for more than half its length, the feather (12 in number)
narrowed terminally and obtusely pointed, wings, long and pointed.
***
Distribution -- Now extinct, the last living specimen
having died in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, September 1, 1914.
Formerly perhaps the most numerous of all birds, inhabiting practically
the whole forested area of eastern North America, breeding northward
to middle western Keewatin, northern Ontario, Quebec, northern Maine,
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, southward to Kansas,Northern Mississippi
Kentucky and Pennsylvania, migrating southward to the Gulf coast (Florida
to Texas), casually to Cuba, eastern Mexico and Guatemala, westward
regularly along the Missouri River to Eastern Montana and to Western
Texas, accidentally to Nevada, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, western Washington
an British Columbia accidental in British Isles, Europe and the Bermudas.
More interest is evidenced in the history of the Passenger Pigeon
and its fate than in that of any other North American bird. Its story
reads like a romance. Once the most abundant species in its flights
and on its nesting grounds, ever known in any country,ranging over
the greater part of the continent of North America in innumerable
hordes, the race seems to have disappeared during the nineteenth (and
early 20th) century, leaving no trace.
These great flights of Pigeons in migration extended over vast tracts
of country, and usually passed in their greatest numbers for about
three (3) days. This is the testimony of observers in many parts of
the land. Afterwards, flocks often came along for a week or two longer.
Even as late as the decade succeeding 1866 (1870's)such
flights continued, and were still observed throughout the eastern
States and Canada, except perhaps along the Atlantic coast.
About 1850 indications of the disappearance of the Pigeons in the
East began to attract some notice. They became rare in Newfoundland
in the 60's, though formerly abundant there. They grew fewer in Ontario
at that time, but according to Fleming some of the old roosts there
were occupied until 1870.
Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology, tells of a breeding
place of the Wild Pigeons in Shelbyville, Ky.(probably about 1806)
which was several miles in breadth, and was said to be more than forty
miles in extent. More than one hundred nests were found on a tree.
The ground was strewn with broken limbs of trees;also eggs and dead
squabs {babies} which had been precipitated from above , on which
herds of hogs were fattening. He speaks of a flight of these birds
from another nesting place some sixty miles away from the first, toward
Green River, where they were said to be equally numerous. They were
traveling with great steadiness and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot,
several strata deep, very close together, and "from right to left
as far as the eye could reach,the breadth of this vast procession
extended; seeming everywhere equally crowded." From half-past one
to four o'clock in the afternoon, while he was traveling to Frankfort,
the same living torrent rolled overhead, seemingly as extensive as
ever. He estimated the flock that passed him to be two hundred and
forty miles long and a mile wide -- probably much wider -- and to
contain two billion two hundred and thirty million, two hundred and
seventy-two thousand pigeons. On the supposition that each bird consumed
only half a pint of nuts and acorns daily, he reckoned that this column
of birds would eat seventeen million, four hundred and twenty-four
thousand bushels each day.
He saw that day what he thought to be the largest flight of Wild Pigeons
he had ever seen. The air was literally filled with them; and the
"light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse." Before sunset he
reached Louisville, fifty five miles from Hardensburgh, and during
all that time Pigeons were passing in undiminished numbers. This continued
for three days in succession. The people were all armed, and the banks
of the river were crowded with men and boys incessantly shooting at
the Pigeons, which flew lower as they passed the river. For a week
or more the people fed on no other flesh than Pigeons. The atmosphere
during that time was strongly impregnated with the odor of the birds.
Audubon estimated the number of pigeons passing overhead (in a flock
one mile wide) for three hours, traveling at the rate of a mile a
minute, allowing two pigeons to the square yard, a one billion, one
hundred and fifteen million, one hundred and thirty-six thousand....
Great flights of Pigeons ranged form the Alleghenies to the Mississippi
and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico until after the middle of
the nineteenth century. Even two decades later {1870's},enormous
numbers of Pigeons nested in several States.
The nesting places sometimes were equal in size to roosting places,
for the Pigeons congregated in enormous numbers to breed in the northern
and eastern States. When food was plentiful in the forests, the birds
concentrated in large numbers; when it was not, they scattered in
smaller groups. The last great nesting place of which we have adequate
record was in Michigan, in 1878. Prof. H.B. Roney states in the American
Field, that the nesting near Potoskey, that year, covered something
like100,000 acres, and included not less than 150,000 acres within
its limits. It was estimated to be about forty miles in length and
from three to ten miles in width. It is difficult to approximate the
number of millions of Pigeons that occupied that great nesting place.
Audubon, who described the dreadful havoc made among these birds on
their roosting grounds by man, says that people unacquainted with
them might naturally conclude that such destruction would soon put
an end to the species, but he had satisfied himself, by long observation
that nothing but the gradual diminution of the forests could accomplish
the decrease of the birds, for he believed that they not infrequently
quadrupled their numbers during the year and always doubled them.
The enormous multitudes of the Pigeons made such an impression
upon the mind that the extinction of the species at that time, and
for many years afterward, seemed an an impossibility. Nevertheless,
it has occurred. How can this apparent impossibility be explained?
It cannot be accounted for by the destructiveness of their natural
enemies, for during the years when the Pigeons were the most abundant
their natural enemies were most numerous.The extinction of the
Pigeons has been coincident with the disappearance of bears, panthers,
wolves, lynxes, and some of the larger birds of prey from a large
portion of their range.
The aborigines never could have reduced appreciably the number of
the species. Wherever the great roost were established, Indians always
gathered in great numbers. This, according to their traditions, had
been the custom among them from time immemorial. They always had slaughtered
these birds, young and old, in great quantities, but there was
no market among the Indians,and the only way they could preserve
the meat for future use was by drying or smoking the breasts.They
cured large numbers in this way. Also, they were accustomed to kill
great quantities of the squabs in order to take out the fat, which
was used as butter is used by the whites. Lawson writes (1709): "You
may find several Indian towns of not above seventeen houses that have
more than 100 gallons pigeons oil or fat."
But it was not until a market demand for the birds was created
by the whites that the Indians ever seriously affected the increase
of the Pigeons. Kalm states, in his monograph of the Pigeon, that
the Indians of Canada would not molest the Pigeons in their breeding
places until the young were able to fly. They did everything in their
power to prevent the whites from disturbing them, even using threats,
where pleading did not avail.
The Pigeons were reduced greatly in numbers on the whole Atlantic
seaboard during the first two centuries after the settlement of the
country. But in the West their numbers remained apparently the same
until the nineteenth century. There was no appreciable decrease there
during the first half of that {19th} century, but during the latter
half, railroads were pushed across the plains to the Pacific, settlers
increased rapidly to the Mississippi and beyond, and the diminution
of the Pigeons in the West began. Already it had become noticeable
in western Pennsylvania, western New York, along the Appalachian mountain
chain and in Ohio. This was due in part to the destruction of the
forests, particularly the beechwoods which once covered vast tracts,
and which furnished the birds with a chief supply of food. Later,
the primeval pine and hemlock forests of the northern States largely
were cut away. This deprived the birds of another source of food--the
seed of these trees. The destruction of the forests, however, was
not complete, for, although great tracts of land were cleared, there
remained and still remain {1936?} vast
regions more or less covered by coppice growth sufficient to furnish
great armies of Pigeons with food and the cultivation of the land
and the raising of grain provided new sources of good supply. Therefore,
while the reduction of the forest area in the East was a large factor
in the diminution of the Pigeons, we cannot attribute their extermination
to the destruction of the forest. Forest fires undoubtedly had something
to do with reducing the number of these birds, for many were destroyed
by these fires, and in some cases large areas of forest were ruined
absolutely by fire, thus for many years depriving the birds of a portion
of their food supply. Nevertheless, the fires were local and restricted,
and had comparatively little effect on the vast numbers of the species.
The net, though used by fowlers almost everywhere in the East from
the earliest settlement of the country, was not a great factor in
the extermination of the Pigeons in the Mississippi Valley States
until the later half of the nineteenth century. With the extension
of railroads and telegraph lines through the States, the occupation
of the netter became more stable than before, for he could follow
the birds wherever they went. The number of men who made netting
an occupation after the year 1860 is variously estimated at from 400
to 1000. Whenever a flight of Pigeons left one nesting place and
made toward another, the netter learned their whereabouts by telegraph,
packed up their belongings, and moved to the new location, sometimes
following the birds a thousand miles at one move. Some of them
not only made a living, but earned a competency, by netting Pigeons
during part of the year and shooting wildfowl and game birds during
the remainder of the season. In addition to these there were the local
netters who plied the trade only when the Pigeons came their way.
Possibly the last great slaughter of Pigeons in New York, of which
we have record, was some time in the 70's. A flock had nested in Missouri
in April, where they were followed by the same pigeoners, who again
destroyed the squabs {young}. The Pigeons
then flew to New York State, and nested near the upper Beaverkill
in the Catskills in the lower part of Ulster County. It is said that
tons of the birds were sent to the New York market from this nesting
place and that not less than fifteen tons of ice were used in packing
the squabs.
****
The birds that survived the slaughter at Petosky in 1878 finally left
the nesting place in large bodies and disappeared to the North, and
from that time onward the diminution of the Pigeons was continuous....
****
****
A flock was seen in Illinois in 1895, from which two specimens were
taken. At that time the netting of the birds had been practically
given up, and most of the dealers had seen no Pigeons for two seasons.
It finally ceased, on account of the virtual extinction of the birds.
****
"While the big nestings of 1878
and 1881 in Michigan were the last immense breeding places
of Passenger Pigeons on record, the species didn't become
extinct in a day or a year; they were not wiped from the
face of the earth by any great catastrophe. They gradually
became fewer and fewer for twenty to twenty-five years after
the date set by the pigeoners as that of the last great
migration." An entire species numbering in the billions
was extinguished. The "impossible" was achieved by uncontrolled
modern mechanized killing.
It often is asked how it was possible for man to kill them all. It was
not possible, nor was it requisite that he should do so in order to
exterminate them. All that was required to bring about this result was
to destroy a large part of the young birds hatched each year. Nature
cut off the rest....
****
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--Wild Birds For the 21st Century ©
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