[Nhcoll-l] 2014 marks centenary of extinction of the PassengerPigeon

[Steve Sullivan]

This is an interesting point.  On the one hand it points out (once again)
the exceptional value of the specimens we maintain in our collections.  On
the other hand, it makes us reconsider what ephemera we keep versus what we
throw away and how we choose to document the seemingly blatantly obvious or
commonplace.  While photographers lugged heavy equipment to civil war
battlefields and similarly difficult places, we have almost no pictures of
wild passenger pigeons.  So far only 2 pictures of live or recently live
birds not from the Whitman flock have been found and will be published next
year in Joel Greenberg's forthcoming book.  People on this list  may be in a
position to find some that we have not been able to.  Please do forward any
leads you have.  

--Steve

Steven M. Sullivan  |  Senior Curator of Urban Ecology

The Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

 

Museum|2430 North Cannon Drive|Chicago Illinois 60614|
<http://www.naturemuseum.org/> naturemuseum.org

Collections|4001 North Ravenswood Ave.|Chicago Illinois 60613|
<http://projectsquirrel.org/> projectsquirrel.org

P 708-937-6253 | F 773-755-5199 | ssullivan at naturemuseum.org

 

A century of memories and lessons from the Passenger Pigeon at
<http://passengerpigeon.org/> passengerpigeon.org

 

 

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Mary Beth
Prondzinski
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2013 7:41 AM
To: 'Ellen Paul'; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] 2014 marks centenary of extinction of the
PassengerPigeon

 

And why are there no photos of this pillage?!  None...

 

Mary Beth Prondzinski

Director of Collections

Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium

1302 Main Street

St. Johnsbury, VT 05819

(802) 748-2372 x110

mprondzinski at fairbanksmuseum.org

 

http://fairbanksmuseum.org/

http://vermonttv.net/

 

 

 

  _____  

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Ellen Paul
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 6:29 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] 2014 marks centenary of extinction of the
PassengerPigeon

The timing of the events has to be taken into consideration. Audubon wrote
that in 1813. A population that vast could take a fair amount of hunting
pressure. However, the huge slaughters by market hunters continued into the
1850s and 1860s, facilitated by rail access to the markets. 

>From David Blockstein's species account in the Birds of North America:




 "As settlement advanced, as railroads were built, spanning the continent,
as telegraph lines followed them, as markets developed for the birds, an
army of people, hunters, settlers, netters and Indians, found in the pigeons
a considerable part of their means of subsistence, and the birds were
constantly pursued and killed whenever they appeared,at all seasons of the
year " (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib048> Forbush 1927: 67).

In 1842, 3,000 live pigeons were transported by rail from Michigan to
Boston. In 1851, an estimated 1,800,000 pigeons were sent to New York City
from a nesting in n. New York (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib114> Schorger 1955: 145). By the time the Civil
War ended, most of the U.S. east of the Mississippi was covered by railroad.
Only a handful of nesting colonies was too far from rail or ship for market
exploitation. Even a nesting in 1881 in Oklahoma, 176 km from the railroad,
was pillaged by commercial trappers (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib003> Anon. 1881,
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib076> Judy 1881).

Often hundreds of thousands of adults and squabs were shipped from a single
nesting. Large numbers of birds were destroyed by locals or otherwise killed
but not transported. A million birds could be lost at a single nesting. Yet
even these large numbers of birds killed were probably not sufficient to
cause the precipitous decline in the population. Overhunting did not
exterminate the Passenger Pigeon as is commonly believed. Rather, the
disturbance of the nesting colonies led the birds to abandon the nestings
prematurely (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib020> Blockstein and Tordoff 1985). This, coupled
with slaughter of nestlings as well as adults, largely eliminated
replacement of the population.

The simultaneous destruction of the forests of the East obviously played a
big role. 

Again, from Blockstein:




Deforestation was also a major factor in the decline because it reduced the
area available to the pigeons and thus reduced the opportunities for nesting
and roosting colonies. Being nomadic, Passenger Pigeons needed enormous
areas to find some conditions suitable for nesting (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib007> Askins 2000). Because nesting colonies
formed only where there was sufficient mast, the reduction in the forest
meant that in some years there was no nesting at all. Forbush (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib048> 1927: 66) agreed that the decrease "was due
in part to the destruction of the forests, particularly the beech woods. . .
." Another nineteenth-century technology, the portable saw mill introduced
in 1870s, sped the destruction of what had once been a completely forested
landscape. By 1880, about 80% of the original forest of New England had been
cleared (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib075> Irland 1982). Deforestation in the major
nesting area of north-central Pennsylvania began in 1872, but did not reach
full speed until 1892 (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib050> French 1919: 110). Michigan was still well
wooded in 1883 (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib104> Rand McNally and Co. 1883), although it was
being logged rapidly, particularly for its pines, which would have had less
impact on the Passenger Pigeon than logging of deciduous trees.

Deforestation, which occurred from east to west, reduced the available
habitat. In the early eighteenth century, Wilson (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib133> 1812: 109) noted that although the species
was sometimes very numerous in the Atlantic states, it never appeared in
"such unparalleled multitudes" of "congregated millions" as in the "western
forests" of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The last recorded mass nesting in
Massachusetts was in 1850s (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib048> Forbush 1927), in New York in the 1870s.
>From 1870 on, almost all of the nesting colonies recorded were in the
forested Alleghenies of n. Pennsylvania and the Great Lake states of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and, to a lesser extent, Minnesota (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib090> Mershon 1907). These were the areas where
intact original forest remained (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib132> Williams 1989). In 1892, Bendire (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib013> 1892: 132-133) wrote, "breeding range . . .
principally in thinly settled and wooded region along our northern border .
. . as well as . . . Canada, and north at least to Hudson Bay. Isolated and
scattering pairs probably still breed in New England States, northern New
York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a few other
localities further south, but the enormous breeding colonies . . . are . . .
things of the past, probably never to be seen again. In fact, the
extermination . . . has progressed so rapidly during the last twenty years
that it now looks as if their total extermination might be accomplished in
the present century."

Schorger (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib114> 1955) and Blockstein and Tordoff (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib020> 1985) argued that the extent of
mast-bearing forest in the 1870s and 1880s was sufficient to support the
population. However it apparently was not enough to allow nesting colonies
every year. After another 3 decades, there was essentially no sufficient
forest left. But the pigeons were gone before the last deciduous forests.
"The destruction of the forest was not yet complete; for, although great
tracts of land were cleared, there remained and still remain vast regions
more or less covered by coppice growth sufficient to furnish hosts of
pigeons with food, and the cultivation of land and the raising of grain
provided new sources of food supply. Therefore, while the reduction of the
forest area in the east was a factor in the diminution of the pigeons, we
cannot attribute their extermination to the destruction of the forest" (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib048> Forbush 1927: 66).

 

Once the population reached a level of thousands, rather than billions, the
species was unable to recover. Several factors may have been involved.
Persecution continued, nearly to the end. In spring 1883, all of the young
were reportedly taken. One man was said to have taken 60,000 and several
others 10,000 young each (E. S. Bond in
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib004> Anon. 1883). Over 5,000 birds were
reportedly killed at a roost in Missouri the following winter (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib005> Anon. 1884). Over 1,000 carcasses were
shipped to Boston in 1891 (Editor 1891 in
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib114> Schorger 1955: 218). Market-hunting
continued until at least 1893, and shooting was reported to the end.

Blockstein and Tordoff (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib020> 1985) hypothesized that the species slowly
faded away throughout its last decade. By 1892, "the majority [were] no
longer breeding in colonies, but scattering around the country and breeding
in isolated pairs" (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib013> Bendire 1892: 133). Since the species
lacked the numbers for predator satiation through mass nesting that had been
responsible for its success and had no antipredator adaptations for nesting,
such as nest concealment, and since it laid only a single egg, nest success
must have been insufficient to maintain the population.

In contrast, Bucher (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib026> 1992: 25) argued that the decline in
numbers circumvented the social facilitation necessary for the flocks to
find enough mast for a successful nesting. In his view, once a population
went below a minimum viable size, "the remaining individuals were unable to
find food patches at [an] adequate rate." He felt it "likely that a whole
flock may have 'missed' good spots when moving north and starved or at least
failed to produce enough offspring to compensate for adult mortality."
However, a smaller flock would need less food to sustain itself, and it
seems likely that a pair could have found enough food (mast and crops) to
eat and probably even to breed.

Both arguments are based on the inability of a small population to maintain
itself after numbers were insufficient to achieve the evolved strategy
essential to the success of the species-predator satiation (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib020> Blockstein and Tordoff 1985) or social
facilitation of foraging (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib026> Bucher 1992). The unknowable true cause may
have had elements of each. However, it is known that the pigeons continued
to nest in colonies, even as late as 1885-1887 (
<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/art
icles/species/611/biblio/bib114> Schorger 1955: 216). After that, there was
at least some success in nesting in very small groups or even lone pairs (as
always had been the case with a minuscule proportion of the population). The
last birds collected in 1899 in Wisconsin and in 1900 in Ohio were both
immatures.

 





Ellen Paul
Executive Director
The Ornithological Council
Email: ellen.paul at verizon.net
"Providing Scientific Information about Birds
<http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET> "
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET"

On 11/26/13, 6:11 PM, Rowe, Timothy B wrote:

I'm quite glad to see that you have brought this portentous anniversary
brought into the spotlight.  

But what exactly do you mean by "human persecution"?

Audubon himself reported that the Passenger pigeon was breeding at a pace
that mitigated human hunting pressures.  However, he warned that cutting the
old growth forests was something that could pressure them into extinction.
There is ample literature to show that, state-by-state, as the portable saw
mills took down the old forests, loss of adequate food and breeding
environment was the proximate and immediate cause of extinction, not
over-hunting.  

But take comfort in the fact that even great luminaries like Jared Diamond
and E. O. Wilson fell into the same trap - implying that human overkill was
the source.  

Here is why it is important to get this diagnosis correct: a hunting ban
would not have saved the Passenger pigeon, but a logging ban just might
have.  

The causes of extinction are subtle - all the more reason to use this
anniversary to promote research on this most critical topic.

Tim

Timothy Rowe
Director, Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory
The University of Texas at Austin

 


  _____  


From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
<mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>
<nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Steve Sullivan
<mailto:ssullivan at naturemuseum.org> <ssullivan at naturemuseum.org>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 11:44 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] 2014 marks centenary of extinction of the Passenger
Pigeon 

 

This month many of our thoughts are turning towards turkeys but nearly a
century ago we were thinking about another bird-the Passenger Pigeon.  2014
is the centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, a species that
once numbered in the billions; flocks would darken the sky as they passed; 1
in 4 birds on the continent were Passenger Pigeons.  50 years of human
persecution directly resulted in their extinction.  This astonishing loss
stimulated the passage of several important wildlife protection laws
including the migratory bird treaty act and the Lacy act.

Project Passenger Pigeon is a movement to commemorate this anniversary and
use it not only as an opportunity to familiarize people with this remarkable
species, but also to raise awareness of current issues related to
human-caused extinction, explore connections between humans and the natural
world, and inspire people to become more involved in building a sustainable
relationship with other species.

We hope that you and your institution will join over 170 institutions
throughout the world to commemorate this anniversary and use it to promote
the conservation issues that are most relevant to your region.  Resources of
all kinds-a book, exhibit panels, classroom lessons, a speaker's bureau, and
more are available at http://passengerpigeon.org/ .   Attached is a letter
that outlines these in more detail or just visit the website.

Yours, 

Steve

Steven M. Sullivan  |  Senior Curator of Urban Ecology

The Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

 

Museum|2430 North Cannon Drive|Chicago Illinois 60614|naturemuseum.org
<http://www.naturemuseum.org/> 

Collections|4001 North Ravenswood Ave.|Chicago Illinois
60613|projectsquirrel.org <http://projectsquirrel.org/> 

P 708-937-6253 | F 773-755-5199 | ssullivan at naturemuseum.org

 

A century of memories and lessons from the Passenger Pigeon at
passengerpigeon.org <http://passengerpigeon.org/> 

 

 

 






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