PASSENGER PIGEON - PART 1

5 billion is a large number, and that is about how many passenger pigeons were once thought to flood the skies in the eastern part of the United States.  The male Passenger Pigeon was 16 inches long with a bluish gray head and orange chest.  Their back was an olive color with black spots.  The female was slightly smaller and all that olive color. The Passenger Pigeon were a very speedy bird, clocking in at 62 mph.

 The Passenger Pigeon gets its name from the French word, passager, which means "passing by" because huge flocks were always migrating or passing through. In fact, in Ontario in 1866 one flock was estimated to be one mile wide and 300 miles wide.  It blacked the sky for 14 straight hours and scientists estimate this one flock may have held 3.5 billion pigeons.  It was also reported that after one of these immense flocks past it looked like it had snowed because of all of the poop left behind.

 The Passenger Pigeons large numbers and extremely social behavior may have been its Achilles heal.  Their breeding colonies were so thick that tree branches would often break under the weight of so many nests.  Hunters soon started gathering huge numbers of Passenger Pigeons to sell as a food source for people in growing cities along the Eastern seaboard.  They even had hunting competitions in which the winner killed 30,000 birds.  Hunts would soak grain in alcohol and then net the inebriated birds that couldn't fly. 

 Taking advantage of their social behavior, hunters would capture a bird, tie its leg to a stool and place it in an open field.  Other Passenger Pigeons would respond to the distressed bird, only to be shot or netted.  It is thought that this is where we get the term "stool pigeon".

 By the 1870's the population was starting to show signs of diminishing.  The reduction in population seemed to affect their ability to breed, which further shrunk the population. The last wild Passenger Pigeon was shot in Ohio in 1900. This left only a few remaining birds left in zoos.  

 Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914 at 1pm.  

 The demise of the Passenger Pigeon left a nation in shock. Many people couldn't believe that the once sky darkening, plentiful Passenger Pigeon had gone the way of the dodo.  It couldn't be blamed on anything except the people who had hunted it so mercilessly for so long.  The extinction of the Passenger Pigeon did get people to take note about the need for laws and regulations to keep other plentiful species from following suit.  Their extinction may have saved white tail deer, alligators, and wild turkeys from facing the same fate of over hunting.

 Additional Information:

 http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/09/01/100-passenger-pigeon-facts-on-the-100th-anniversary-of-its-extinction?fromGateway=true

http://www.birdorable.com/blog/martha-week-10-passenger-pigeon-facts/


http://cincinnatizoo.org/blog/2014/08/26/cincinnati-zoo-remembers-martha-the-worlds-last-passenger-pigeon/

http://foldtheflock.org/ (origami passenger pigeons)
Painting of a Passenger Pigeon Flock 

Birdorable's 100 year extinction tribute

Former Passenger Pigeon Range

Picture of Martha at the Cincinnati  Zoo

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

KAWEKAWEAU (DELCOURT'S GIANT GECKO)

Image
The Kawekaweau was the largest member of the gecko family that lived in New Zealand.  It was nearly 24 inches long, which is about twice as large as any other gecko species ever known.  It was the width of a man's wrist and had reddish stripes running the length of its body. Scientists thought that the Kawekaweau was simply a legend for a long time. The name Delcourt comes from the French scientist who rediscovered the only known specimen of of the Kawekaweau in the Natural History Museum of Marseille in 1986. The last recorded living Kawekaweau was in 1870 by a Maori chief.  It is thought that the arrival of Europeans and the invasive species they brought; rats, cats, and weasels took their toll on the Kawekaweau. Additional Resources: http://gizmodo.com/this-specimen-of-an-extinct-giant-gecko-was-found-in-a-1742435773 Drawing from the book, A Gap in Nature The only known specimen of a Kawekaweau
Read more

Visiting Lonesome George in NYC and Martha the Passenger Pigeon in DC

Image
I started this blog  to point out animals you'll never get a chance to meet first hand.  No, I'm not talking about unicorns or centaurs, but about recently extinct animals.  2014 was a big one in extinction news because it marked the 100 year anniversary of the passenger pigeon, when Martha died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914 at 1pm.  I took my family to the Cincinnati Zoo, but Martha's statue wasn't there because they were building a memorial that opened a few weeks after our visit. My wife and I also got to see the real Lonesome George who was on display in New York at the Natural History Museum, before being shipped back to be displayed in the Galapagos.  
Read more

YUNNAN LAKE NEWT

Image
The Yunnan Lake Newt (YLN) was a newt that lived in the region in and around Kunming Lake in the Yunnan Providence in China.  The YLN was about an inch long and the male and female coloration varied slightly. The Yunnan Lake Newt was last seen in 1979.  As the cities around its lake habitat increased, its population plummeted. Amphibians like frogs, salamanders, and newts are extremely vulnerable to pollution because they absorb water, oxygen, and even toxins through their porous skin.  There are many concerns for many amphibian species today (see 2nd link below). Besides pollution, habitat loss for increased housing also took its toll on the YLN population.  The addition of invasive species were the nail in the coffin for this species.  The newts couldn't compete with the addition of domestic ducks, exotic fish and frogs added to the lake. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=1367 http://frogsaregreen.o...
Read more