 |
Ectopistes
migratorius
|
The
Case of the
Passenger Pigeon Extinction
Her
name was Martha. She was the last passenger pigeon in existence and
died in the Cincinnati zoo in 1914 to join the ranks of the auk,
Tasmanian tiger, dodo et
al..
So
how could this US species, with a population of 3-5 billion (at the
time of the European colonisation of America) pass into extinction so
quickly, so easily?
Martha
and her ancestors required large forests to exist. When the early
settlers began to deforest the bird's habitat, the pigeons migrated
to other locations, usually farms, to feed. They cause damage to
crops and were shot by farmers. But the real damage came when
hunters began netting the birds for sale as a food source. So great
was the take that by the end of the 19th
c. the birds had nearly disappeared. As
they require large flocks to persist, these birds, unable to adapt,
never recovered.
Good
Reads: A
Feathered River Across the Sky by
Joel Greenberg
Good
Vibrations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPUu-rMpWA
