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

[malcolm McCallum]

There is more to the passenger pigeon story than the hunting.
simultaneously there was complete deforestation across much of its range.
This would have forced birds into a few trees and also led to serious food
shortages since mast crops would have been lower.  Further, you have the
dust bowl and associated environmental problems that stressed out that part
of the range.  When you combine all of these things it is no wonder they
went extinct, and frankly rather rapidly.

Malcolm McCallum


On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Heather Lerner <hlerner at gmail.com> wrote:

> We have several passenger pigeons in our collection at the Joseph Moore
> Museum and talk about their decline in many of our tours. Last summer I
> spent a day with Joel Greenberg (whom several of you know better than I!).
> So, I contacted Joel to see what he thought of our conversation here and he
> responded with this:
>
> I spent close to three years looking for photos of freshly killed
> passenger pigeons: such photos are not in the literature and have eluded
> others who have searched for them. I eventually  located one image (and
> subsequently a couple of versions of that same image) which depicts three
> dead passenger pigeons. The other photo to which Angelo refers is also
> unique in its way. It features two passenger pigeon hunters with their live
> stool pigeons and equipment posing in front of a painted background. Both
> of these will be in *A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger
> Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction,*  the new book due for release on January 7.
> I am  hoping  that the book will produce other photos. The mass slaughters
> ended in the early 1880s and the last wild  birds were killed at the end of
> the 1890s and first couple years of the new century so such photos probably
> exist somewhere. But the lack of such photos should in no way cause anyone
> to doubt the abundance of the bird: to do so would be  to disregard 350
> years of first hand accounts written in six or more languages.
>
> Joel Greenberg
> Research Associate
> Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, and
> Field Museum
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Steve Halford <halford at sfu.ca> wrote:
>
>> Consider the state of photography in the mid to late 19th century.  They
>> needed long exposures of stationary subjects.  (There's a reason why so
>> many surviving Civil War photographs are of the dead on battlefields.)  A
>> flock of live passenger pigeons would appear as nothing but a blur, not
>> worth the photographer's trouble to even try to get a picture.
>> Steve.
>>
>> Steve Halford (halford at sfu.ca)
>> Museum Technician (Retired)
>> Department of Biological Sciences
>> Simon Fraser University
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 8:49 AM, Steve Sullivan <
>> ssullivan at naturemuseum.org> wrote:
>>
>>> 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|naturemuseum.org<http://www.naturemuseum.org/>
>>>
>>> Collections|4001 North Ravenswood Ave.|Chicago Illinois 60613|
>>> 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/>*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *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<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* ” (Forbush 1927<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib048>:
>>> 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 (Schorger 1955<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib114>:
>>> 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 (Anon.
>>> 1881<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib003>
>>> , Judy 1881<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib076>
>>> ).
>>>
>>> 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 (Blockstein and Tordoff 1985<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib020>).
>>> 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 (Askins
>>> 2000<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib007>).
>>> 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 (1927<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib048>:
>>> 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 (Irland 1982<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib075>).
>>> Deforestation in the major nesting area of north-central Pennsylvania began
>>> in 1872, but did not reach full speed until 1892 (French 1919<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib050>:
>>> 110). Michigan was still well wooded in 1883 (Rand McNally and Co. 1883<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib104>),
>>> 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 (1812<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib133>:
>>> 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 (Forbush
>>> 1927<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib048>),
>>> 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 (Mershon
>>> 1907<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib090>).
>>> These were the areas where intact original forest remained (Williams
>>> 1989<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib132>).
>>> In 1892, Bendire (1892<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib013>:
>>> 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 (1955<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib114>)
>>> and Blockstein and Tordoff (1985<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib020>)
>>> 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” (Forbush 1927<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib048>:
>>> 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 Anon. 1883<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib004>).
>>> Over 5,000 birds were reportedly killed at a roost in Missouri the
>>> following winter (Anon. 1884<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib005>).
>>> Over 1,000 carcasses were shipped to Boston in 1891 (Editor 1891 inSchorger
>>> 1955<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib114>:
>>> 218). Market-hunting continued until at least 1893, and shooting was
>>> reported to the end.
>>>
>>> Blockstein and Tordoff (1985<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib020>)
>>> 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” (Bendire
>>> 1892<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib013>:
>>> 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 (1992<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib026>:
>>> 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 (Blockstein
>>> and Tordoff 1985<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib020>)
>>> or social facilitation of foraging (Bucher 1992<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib026>).
>>> 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 (Schorger 1955<http://bna.birds.cornell.edu.bnaproxy.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/611/articles/species/611/biblio/bib114>:
>>> 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" <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
>>> <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu>on behalf of Steve Sullivan
>>> <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
>>>
>>> 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/>*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>> Nhcoll-l mailing list
>>>
>>> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
>>>
>>> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Heather
>
> *******************************************
> Heather R. L. Lerner, Ph.D., M.S.
> Joseph Moore Museum <http://earlham.edu/jmm> Director
> Assistant Professor of Biology
> Earlham College
> 801 National Road West
> Richmond IN 47374
>
> *******************************************
> Google Voice: 949-GENOMES
> Email: hlerner at gmail.com
> http://heatherlerner.com/
> *******************************************
>
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> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
>


-- 
Malcolm L. McCallum
Department of Environmental Studies
University of Illinois at Springfield

Managing Editor,
Herpetological Conservation and Biology



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