I believe that I have read in the past that the farmers of the day would turn their pigs loose in the hardwoods to feed on the mast. They hated the competition for feed created by the Passenger pigeons. Hence at night they burned the birds in their roost trees when they found them.
I've raised Homing pigeons many years for training the pointing dogs and had weasels enter the coop at night killing every single bird without one leaving the coop. If the passengers were at all like the homers, they would sit tight in a burning tree before flying out into the darkness.
If true, that type of mass killing would surely put a hurt on any species.
|
Threaded Mode