10 Facts About Passenger Pigeons

September 1, 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were billions of Passenger Pigeons in North America, so many, in fact that their flocks are described as blackening the sky when they flew overhead. Less than a century later, the species was extinct in the wild with only a handful of individuals left in aviaries and zoos around the country. We can pinpoint the moment of their extinction because the last of her species, Martha the Passenger Pigeon, died on September 1, 1914 at 1 o'clock in the afternoon at the Cincinnati Zoo. Here are ten more surprising facts from Errol Fuller, an extinction expert and author of The Passenger Pigeon.

1.

Passenger Pigeon, female above, male below. Aquatint by John James Audubon and Robert Havell from Audubon's great work The Birds of America. Photographed by Errol Fuller. / Via The Passenger Pigeon by Errol Fuller (Princeton University Press, 2014)

At the start of the nineteenth century, the Passenger Pigeon was probably the most numerous species of bird on the planet. By some estimates, 4 out of every 10 birds in North America was a Passenger Pigeon. By the end of the century, there were no birds left in the wild and only a handful of individuals in captivity.

2.

A painting produced by Julian Pender Hume for the cover of his book Extinct Birds (2012). Although different in some aspects of composition, it is deliberately based on a well-known image from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Acrylic on paper, / Via julianhume.co.uk

In his book Hope Is the Thing with Feathers (2000), Christopher Cokinos provided a different perspective on the enormity of the Passenger Pigeon population. Describing one massive flight that lasted for several days, he estimates that if the individual birds had flown beak to tail in a single file, they would have stretched around the earth's equatorial circumference 22.6 times!

3.

An often-reproduced image, taken from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (July 3, 1875) and titled Winter Sports in Northern Louisiana: Shooting Wild Pigeons. It was drawn by an otherwise virtually unknown illustrator called Smith Bennett. / Via The Passenger Pigeon by Errol Fuller (Princeton University Press, 2014)

One observer of a massive 1874 hunt in Shelby, Michigan, estimated that 25,000 Passenger Pigeons were killed each day for four weeks--a total of 700,000 birds. Shockingly, this is not the largest Passenger Pigeon hunt on record.

While hunting is the most cited reason for the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, habitat destruction also played a pivotal role. Passenger Pigeons had evolved a way of living entirely dependent on existence in vast numbers and the combination of hunting and habitat destruction led their populations to fall dangerously low, quickly reaching a tipping point from which they could not recover.

4.

Plaque on a monument in Wisconsin / Via shadesofwhite.typepad.com

Press Clay Southworth, a fourteen-year-old boy from Pike Count, Ohio, holds the dubious honor of killing the last wild passenger pigeon on March 24, 1900. This plaque does not commemorate that particular event, but it offers up this relevant inscription: "Dedicated to the last Wisconsin passenger pigeon shot at Babcock, Sept. 1899. This species became extinct through the avarice and thoughtlessness of man."

5.

The cover of a leaflet issued by the National Association of Audubon Societies promoting the protection of wild birds and featuring the Passenger Pigeon as an icon to attract attention to its work (circa 1920). / Via The Passenger Pigeon by Errol Fuller (Princeton University Press, 2014)

In an example of too little, too late. An 1897 law in Michigan banned the shooting of passenger pigeons. It was an easy law to obey as there were no pigeons left to shoot.

6.

An adult male Passenger Pigeon photographed by J. G. hubbard in the aviaries of Charles Whitman. / Via The Passenger Pigeon by Errol Fuller (Princeton University Press, 2014)

The last two Passenger Pigeons were affectionately called George and Martha. Visitors to the Cincinnati Zoo described them softly calling to each other with a "see, see" sound. Sadly, George died on July 10, 1910 leaving Martha alone for the next four years.

7.

Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, in life. This photograph has been reproduced many times in books, magazines, and journals. It was taken by Enno Meyer. / Via en.wikipedia.org

Martha died on September 1, 1914 at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Her body was packed in 300 lbs of ice and rushed to The Smithsonian. The trip took 3 days and by the time she arrived, much of the ice had melted.

8.

“Martha,” the last known passenger pigeon. Photo by Carl Hansen, Smithsonian Institution, 1985 / Via mnh.si.edu

Martha is still on display at the Smithsonian though she isn't wearing the feathers in which she died. Her keepers, anticipating her death, collected feathers from earlier molts so that she could "be shown to posterity, not as an old bird with most of her plumage gone...but as the queenly young passenger pigeon that delighted thousands of bird and nature lovers at the Zoo." (quote from the Cincinnati Enquirer)

9.

Taxidermied Carolina Parakeet. Teaching and research collections, Laval University Library. / Via en.wikipedia.org

The Passenger Pigeon is not the only species to go extinct at the Cincinnati Zoo. By coincidence, the last member of another North American bird species--the Carolina Parakeet--died in the same zoo just four years later.

10.

A Passenger Pigeon chick. This photo was taken by J. G. Hubbard at the aviaries of Charles Whitman in either 1896 or 1898. / Via Wisconsin Historial Society (permission granted to Errol Fuller for The Passenger Pigeon)

The advent of technology plays a part in the story of the Passenger Pigeon--both in their downfall and their lasting legacy in the conservation movement. Guns and traps allowed humans to hunt Passenger Pigeons in unimaginable quantities, while industrial sprawl demanded the destruction of key habitats. But advances in photography also mean we have more photographs of living passenger pigeons than of any other extinct bird species and these images lend a visceral and modern face to conservation efforts.