The Passenger Pigeon.....
 

I had an interesting time on Friday evening, thought I'd share the experience. Not about Parker Guns directly, but I'm sure plenty of Passenger Pigeons got shot with Parkers so it's somewhat related.

A friend of mine, Joel Greenburg, had a new book published about this year to mark the 100th anniversary of their extinction. The last one died on September 1st, 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.

Joel is a tree hugger deluxe, but somehow we're friends, as odd as that seems. I let him use a couple photos from the book that I had in my collection which show passenger pigeons.

He was in town to give a lecture at the U of M Natural History Museum so I figured I'd better go. I'm pretty sure I was the only sportsman in attendance and certainly the only live pigeon shooter. I wore my Pennsylvania Flyers membership pin just to represent our side, I'm sure it was in bad taste but of course I didn't care.

The lecture was very interesting and I learned a few things I didn't know. Afterwards I was showing Joel some other photos that I believed might show eskimo curlew and labrador duck but I never was sure about it. He called over a lady who's the curator of birds at the museum to look them over. She and I fell to talking and she invited me up to look at their collection of extinct bird mounts and study skins, particularly to see the labrador duck they have so we could compare it to the photo.

I can't tell you the feeling I had when she started pulling out the drawers where the birds are stored. I'd seen mounted passenger pigeons before, even had a chance to buy one once, but they've got probably 20 so that was impressive. The highlight was to actually see a labrador duck, a nice full plumage drake. But they've also got ivory billed woodpeckers, imperial woodpeckers, carolina parakeets, and a dozen others that are now gone from the Earth. I was simply blown away to say the least.....

We compared the labrador to my photo and we're both nearly certain that's what's shown. It's from a distance, rows of birds hanging on the wall of a shack, but you can see the markings pretty clearly. I bought it in a group of hunting camp photos from a dealer in Long Island years ago. Seems fitting as that's where the last know birds were shot.

She invited me back when we had more time so I could look over some things they have from the personal collection of William Mershon who wrote one of the early works on Passenger Pigeons. Mershon was from Michigan and was a very active sportsman / collector so it will be really interesting to see what they've got. I believe they also have his papers in their library.

Anyway, thought some of you boys might be interested in hearing about it.



DLH

Pretty interesting stuff. Destry and I both have hundreds of sporting publication ads for pigeon dealers in the pre-1914 time period. It is a bit of a tossup about who to blame for the eradication of the PP, the habitat destroyers or the shooters. I have not read enough on the subject to choose a side. Pigeon dealers today are trying to eradicate the common pigeon, but they are a bit behind the opposition.

Bill,

Actually, I have a ton of produce dealer price sheets from the 1860's to the early 1900's but I only have two that list "wild pigeons". I pick them up for the "wild game" sections where they list prices for canvasback, shore birds, and pretty much anything else you could hunt or trap.


DLH

Thank you for posting that. I have been fascinated by the PP for many years. I have been to visit Martha in her final testing place (pictured below) at the cincinnati zoo many times. The memorial has a cloak of sadness about it. It's been speculated that the PP was the most abundant animal on earth. Do you know how I could get a copy of your friends book?

If you want to see Martha herself, she's currently on display at the Smithsonian. She's not been out in a long time apparently, glad to hear she's available for viewing again.

My friends book is called "A Feathered River Across The Sky" you can get it on Amazon or any of the other online book sites.

She is regularly on display at the Cincinnati zoo where she resides. There is a lot of information and memorabilia on display with her. Since I was a kid I was fascinated by the sories about how they darkened the skies for hours as they flew by. My now deceased great grandfather used to tell a story about one of the old timers that happened to be camped under a roost one night. He said it was like being in a bird s*#t storm...

Oh that's interesting, I just thought the Smithsonian didn't have her out. Turns out she was in Cincinnati for quite awhile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_%28pigeon%29

thanks destrey for posting this info on the pp..anyway ya ll could post a picture of one of these birds i ve never seen one...charlie

Click on that link I posted, there's pictures of Martha on that page.

They look very similar to a dove, just about half again as big and a little more colorful.

Here you go

Is that one on the bottom right buffalo skulls?

No. Those are dead birds. Shows you the magnitude of the slaughter.

Where did you get the picture? I'd be interested in looking at the website it came off of.

DLH

Interesting,they just put a passenger pigeon on display at the Sugarland's Visitor Center in Gatlinburg, it is supposed to be the last one alive that died at the Cincinnati zoo.

If it is ol' Martha she's traveling a lot more now than when she was alive.

DLH

I thought I'd seen that photo before, go back to the site and read the caption. It's buffalo skulls for sure.

Here's a lot clearer version of it:

OMG.... It looked like dead birds to my unaided eye. That's even worse than a giant pile of dead birds.

Correction, the passenger pigeon on display in Gatlinburg, TN. is a male and is from 1856. It has been kept in the park's natural history collection. The article with it tells the story of Martha, the last passenger pigeon in existence that was kept at the Cincinnati Zoo. The pigeons went from billions to extinct in a relatively short time due to shooting and robbing nests for the young birds which were considered a delicacy. Hard to imagine that happened. Sept. 1 was the anniversary of the death of the last pigeon, Martha.

Overhunting on their nesting grounds certainly contributed to their demise but it was the fault of the timber industry as much as anything. They nested in flocked of millions, it takes a pretty big piece of timber to hold that many birds. They also fed almost solely on nuts (acorn and beech), again it takes an awful lot of trees to feed them. You can trace their decline to the cutting of the large hardwood forests of the midwestern US. When the big virgin timber tracts were gone so were the pigeons.


DLH

Great looking bird. What a shame they are gone. Makes me wonder how many other unknown species were lost due to the expansion of civilization, going extinct before they were even "discovered" to exist.

Destry thanks again for letting me know about your friends book. I downloaded it from Amazon to my kindle this morning and read the preface. I can tell it's going to an amazing story.

Contrary to much thinking, "extinction" is not bad. It is the natural course of nature. Most species that have existed on Earth are now extinct. The planet seems to be doing fine.

And if you're worried about bird extinction, witness the Canada goose. Once almost extinct. Now soiling lawns and golf courses everywhere. The best part: they taste like liver.

If you're worried about extinction, the air, the water, etc., watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tncnWp67wQI

Kensal,

Actually it was only ever the Giant Canada Goose subspecies that was close to extinction. They actually thought they were gone until feral non-migratory flocks were discovered that were descendants of live decoys and ornamental birds.

I don't think anybody has ever really looked into it, but I believe all the feral Canada Geese in the UK are giant strain as well. We shot some over there on a couple of occasions and they were the biggest ones I'd ever picked up in my whole life.

The smallest race (Aleutian) was also in bad shape for a long time due to fox predation on their nesting islands. They finally got all the foxes cleared off and now they're doing fine. You can actually hunt them again, a great success story for a fun game bird.



DLH

Cloning the passenger pigeon
 

William Mershon was a dedicated conservationist. His fish camp, which belongs to a friend of mine, is about 7 miles up stream from my cabin on the North Branch of the Au Sable. After northern Michigan was raped by the logging companies, Mershon planted tens of thousands of trees to try to repair the damage done before him

I think I feel an article coming on. I wonder if he's mentioned in the Parker records as a purchaser?

DLH

I ordered that book off Amazon today and look forward to reading it. There's a lot of copies on there.

It's written from the bunny hugger angle, so be prepared for that. Still full of great information, I learned a lot about the birds reading it.

DLH

Destry....What a great post. Enjoyed the thread and your inspiration for further investigation of the passenger pigeon. Whether the stories of Captn Bogardus, glass ball shooting, or the early market gunning, all provide great prospective on the past. Thanks
AWW

Thanks Art

Interesting, I saw some at the museum of natural history in denver when I was a kid there was a recorded story about the bird it saddened me. The skull picture do you know where it was taken? I found a buffalo skull in the bottom of a creek once it was a old one the teeth were very worn.

No idea on the photo, the caption for it I've seen was something like "buffalo bones waiting to be ground for fertilizer" or something like that.

There are still buffalo skulls out there to be found. A friend brought one back he'd found sticking out of the ground while on a pheasant hunt in South Dakota just a few years ago.

Destry

I wonder if Parker Brothers and other American makers used buffalo bones from out west for their case hardening or if it was all locally sourced.

QUOTE=Bob Brown;148453]I wonder if Parker Brothers and other American makers used buffalo bones from out west for their case hardening or if it was all locally sourced.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps they used Passenger Pigeon beaks

The Passenger Pigeon
 

I believe in one of Archibald Rutledge's books, he recalls taking a single Passenger Pigeon at Hampton while in his youth. If I recall correctly, Rutledge was born in 1888. I do not remember which of Rutledge's books has this story.

Someone once did a seat of the pants research and determined that there were more passenger pigeons in the 19th century than ounces of lead mined in the history of man through that time.