Passenger Pigeon
Now extinct, the passenger pigeon once lived in huge numbers in North America east of the Rockies. It was a beautiful bird with a slender body, long pointed tail, brown back, and pink breast. In the early 19th century enormous flocks passed overhead for hours, darkening the sun and filling the air with the roar of wings. Yet the birds were becoming scarce by the time of the Civil War (1861-65). The last passenger pigeon known to be shot in the wild was taken in Pike County, Ohio, in 1900. The last member of the species died in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens in 1914.
The passenger pigeon disappeared for several reasons. Settlers cut down the forests in which the pigeons nested, roosted, and fed on acorns and beech nuts. Millions of birds were shot, trapped, or overcome with sulfur smoke and clubbed to death—then shipped to city food markets.
The shocking extinction of the passenger pigeon led many persons to become ardent conservationists. They formed groups such as the National Audubon Society to save other bird species from a similar fate.
The passenger pigeon was Ectopistes migratorius.
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