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UNNATURAL DISASTERS:

The Last of a Species 100 Ago

Article by Robert T. McElroy ears ago my wife Jean inherited a small of his life devoted to the discovery and library of books from a now deceased description of American . He published a elderly aunt. Most of the books were natural history of birds titled American published in the mid to late 19th century and I in 1808 to 1814. It predates the Ytended to consider them wall decorations. work of the better-known by two Recently I began to go through them and decades. , lived from found two that had accounts that I thought 1785 to 1851, also sought to document much would be of interest to modern of American life and published a color- conservationists. Both stories are in general plate book entitled in well known, but they carry the wonder and 1827 to 1839. By the time Wood published his urgency of someone who was there when it stories from Wilson and Audubon they where happened. This first feature focuses on the forty to sixty years out of date and the Passenger Pigeon; the next edition of Passenger Pigeon was in serious decline. PRAIRIE WINGS will highlight the views of Wood begins: “Among the most Col. Richard Irving Dodge on the American extraordinary of birds, the Passenger Pigeon . They speak for themselves with may take a very high rank, not on account of minimal commentary needed. its size or beauty but on account of the The first is BIRDS: Illustrated Natural extraordinary multitudes in which it History written by a Rev J. G. Wood of sometimes migrates from one place to another. London, published in 1871. He wrote very The scenes which take place during these long anthologies (700+ pages) each on migrations are so strange, so wonderful, and BIRDS, MAMMALS, and FISH. Below is a so entirely unlike any events on this side of the partial account of his description of the Atlantic that could not be believed but for the Passenger Pigeon. He recounts the stories of trustworthy testimony by which they are Wilson and Audubon without giving them a corroborated.” reference or even their first names. He Wood used the account of two “well undoubtedly meant Alexander Wilson known known naturalists” Wilson and Audubon, as the “the father of American ornithology.” without specific references. Wilson proceeds Wilson was the first American to spend much to describe a breeding place seen by himself in

Painting by . Juvenile (left), male (center), female (right)

58 Prairie Wings SPRING / SUMMER 2014 Billing Passenger Pigeons painting by John James Audubon. Pigeons and doves normally bill when standing next to each other on the same branch.

Kentucky, “which was several miles in continued for over four hours. and majestic river. When this bend breadth, was said to be nearly forty miles “Wilson observed a column eight or became very great the birds, as if sensible in length, and in which every tree was ten miles in length appearing from of the unnecessarily circuitous course absolutely loaded with nests. All the Kentucky, high in the air, steering over to they were taking, suddenly changed their smaller branches were destroyed by the Indiana. The leaders of this great body direction, so that what was in column birds, many of the large limbs were would sometimes gradually vary their before became an immense front, broken off and thrown on the ground, course, until it formed a large bend of straightening all its indentures until it while no few of the grand forest trees more than a mile in diameter, those swept the heavens in one vast and themselves were killed as surely as if the behind tracing the exact route of their infinitely extended line. Sometimes a axe had been employed for their predecessors. This would continue would make a sweep on a particular destruction. The Pigeons had arrived sometimes long after both extremities part of the column, when, almost as quick about the tenth of April, and left it by the were beyond the reach of sight; so that as lightning, that part shot downward out end of May.” He then describes the the whole with its glittering undulations of the common track; but soon rising systematic “harvesting” of the pigeons marked a space on the again, continued advancing at the same better described by Audubon in the face of the heavens rate as before. This reflection was following paragraphs. resembling the continued by those behind, who on Wilson witnessed such vast flights of winding of a arriving at this point dived down almost pigeons that are hard for the modern vast perpendicularly to a great depth, and reader to comprehend even when rising, followed the exact path of those compared to before him.” roosting flights Audubon has also commented on the of Sandhill same circumstance stating; “but I cannot Cranes on the describe to you the extreme beauty of Platte River in their aerial evolutions when a hawk Nebraska or Snow chanced to press up upon the Geese returning to a rear of a flock. At once, wetland preserve in the like a torrent, and with a Rainwater noise like thunder, they Basin. “When rushed into a compact mass, about one pressing upon each other towards the o’clock, the center. In these almost solid masses, they pigeons which I darted forward in undulating and had observed flying angular lines, descended and swept the greater part of the close over the earth with inconceivable morning northerly velocity, mounted began to return in such perpendicularly so as to immense numbers as I resemble a vast never before had column, and when witnessed. They were high, were seen flying with great steadiness wheeling and and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot, twisting within their in several strata deep, and so close continued lines, together that could shot have reached which resembled the coils of a gigantic them, one discharge would not have serpent.” failed of bringing down several Audubon described a nesting site in individuals. From right to left, as far as Kentucky: “consisting of great trees with the eye could reach, the breadth of this little underbrush and estimated to be vast procession extended, seeming three miles wide and forty miles long. He everywhere equally crowded.” reported few pigeons were then to be Wilson reported this vast seen, but a great number of persons with torrent of birds to be over horses and wagons, gun, and several miles in width and ammunition, had already established

SPRING / SUMMER 2014 Prairie Wings 59 is forever. The greatest flights of birds, likely the most abundant species, recorded in historic times over American forests will never grace our skies again. Our mission is to ensure that a culture of conservation prevents this unnatural fate from being imposed on other species by not just needless extermination and destruction, but by lethal neglect and inaction. encampments on the borders. Two measure subsided; and by dawn all the massacre attempted second nestings at farmers from the vicinity of Russelville, pigeons that were able to fly were gone, new sites, they were soon located by the distant more than a hundred miles, had having flown in a different direction than professional hunters and killed before driven upwards of three hundred hogs to whence they came. The howling of the they had a chance to raise any young. be fattened on the pigeons that were to be now reached our ears, and the The passenger pigeon's technique of slaughtered. Here and there the people , lynxes, , , , survival had been based on mass tactics. employed in plucking and salting what and opossums were seen sneaking off, There had been safety in its large had already been killed were seen sitting whilst and of different flocks, which often numbered hundreds in the midst of large piles of these birds. species, accompanied by a crowd of of thousands of birds. When a flock of Many trees two feet in diameter I vultures, came to supplant them, and this size established itself in an area, the observed were broken off at no great enjoy their share of the spoil.” number of local predators (such distance from the ground; and the Thus ends the account by Rev Wood. as wolves, foxes, weasels, and hawks) branches of many of the largest and Below is an obituary of the Passenger was so small compared to the total tallest had given way, as if the forest had Pigeon provided by the Smithsonian. number of birds that little damage could been swept by a tornado. Everything be inflicted on the flock as a whole. “The notable decrease of passenger proved to me that the number of birds “This colonial way of life became resorting to this part of the forest must be pigeons started when professional hunters began netting and shooting the birds to very dangerous when man became a immense beyond conception. Suddenly predator on the flocks. When the birds there burst forth a general cry of: “Here sell in the city markets. Although even the Indians always had used the birds as were massed together, especially at a they come.” The noise which they made, nesting site, it was easy for man to though yet distant, reminded me of a hard food to some extent, the real slaughter began in the 1800s. slaughter them in such huge numbers gale at sea, passing through the rigging of that there were not enough birds left to a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived “There were no laws restricting the successfully reproduce the species.” and passed over me I felt a current of air number of pigeons killed or the way they that surprised me. Thousands were soon were taken. Because the birds were The wanton slaughter of the birds knocked down by the pole-men; the birds communal in habit, they were easily devastated their numbers, and following continued to pour in; the fires were netted by using baited traps and decoys. that the removal of forests for farmland lighted, and a most magnificent as well as The birds were shot at the nesting sites, and timbering of much of what wonderful and almost terrifying sight young were knocked out of nests remained eliminated or so altered their presented itself. The pigeons arriving by with long sticks, and pots of burning habitat that prospects for recovery to thousands alighted everywhere, one sulphur were placed under the roosting even low numbers were rendered above another, until solid masses as large trees so the fumes would daze the birds impossible, especially in a century when as hogsheads were formed on the and they would fall to the ground. almost everything that could be shot branches all round. Here and there the Hundreds of thousands of passenger was shot. perches gave way with a crash and falling pigeons were killed for private There were no organized, and few on the ground destroyed hundreds of the consumption and for sale on the market, individual, efforts to save imperiled birds beneath, forcing down the dense where they often sold for as little as fifty species. In fact, it wasn’t until 102 years groups with which every stick was cents a dozen. By 1850 the destruction of after Wood published this book on Birds loaded. the pigeons was in full force, and by 1860 that Congress passed the Endangered “It was scene of uproar and confusion; it was noticed that the numbers of birds Species Act of 1973. no one dared venture within the line of seemed to be decreasing, but still the Martha, the last known Passenger devastation, the picking up of the dead slaughter continued. Pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo in and wounded being left for next “One of the last large nestings of . In her last of morning’s employment. The pigeons passenger pigeons occurred at Petoskey, life 100 years ago, she was the last of were constantly coming, and it was past Michigan, in 1878. Here 50,000 birds a prominent North American species. midnight before I perceived a decrease in per day were killed and this rate Magnificent flocks filled the heavens the number of those that arrived. Towards continued for nearly five months. When with flights resembling “the winding the approach of day the noise in some the adult birds that survived this of vast and majestic” rivers.

60 Prairie Wings SPRING / SUMMER 2014