The Passenger Pigeon.....

[George Lander]

Originally Posted by Devan Brown

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.

I believe that passage can be found in "WOODS & WILD THINGS I REMEMBER"

Best Regards, George

[Ben Rawls]

The Passenger pigeon was a beautiful bird but with a tragic flaw in it's reproduction cycle. It mated in the air in huge swirling flocks so copulation was a hit or miss thing. Their reproductive efficiency was very low. when the flocks dropped below a certain level they could not sustain their population levels. They were regarded as "trash birds" anyway.
Neither could they coexist with modern agriculture. I have seen prints of farmers desperately trying to kill the birds eating their year's crop. They were worse then locusts.
Farmers did everything they could to kill,trap,net or otherwise get rid of them.
Ecology is a two edged sword. One man's meat so to speak. Anybody every heard of kudzu?

[MarketHunter]

Somebody posted that deal about them breeding in flight before. It was wrong the first time, still wrong now......

DLH

[Craig Larter]

Destry: I finished the book----very comprehensive story, sad that the Passenger Pigeon is gone but it's passing did give rise to wildlife conservation. Thanks for the recommendation. Craig

[Dennis Wolfe]

Here's a pretty cool pic of an Original oil painting from my dead hanging game collection.

[MarketHunter]

Did you get that from Carol? I was cash poor when I saw it and didn't pull the trigger.

Destry

[Dennis Wolfe]

Hi Destry, no that one was mine too. I liked the one above better so I sold the one you remember.

[gman]

Destry,
Thanks for alerting me to this book. Very informative and sad story. After reading it and visiting the Passanger pigeon web page I vetured about 45 miles south to a place listed on the sight - the Fairbanks Museum in St. johnsbury,Vt. where the site listedthey had a Passanger sample on display. I wanted to see it and kind of pay my respects. I found a well preserved and well presented pair of each sex layed out next to a similar exhibit of Carolina Parrakeets. Well worth the trip.
Later in the day I had a reception elsewhere to go to and there I got talking about the day. I was surprised and bummed that about half the folks I mentioned this to had not heard of the story of this bird. I hope mr Greenburg has great success in getting his words out there to others
Regards
Eric
By the way the research and explanations associated with your picture were a great plus to the story!

[Quail1]

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.

[William McClintock]

These guys are planning on restoring the passenger pigeon using DNA from several museum specimens and eggs from bandtail pigeons I think.

http://longnow.org/revive/what-we-do/passenger-pigeon/

Very interesting concept. I wonder how a revived population could now exist? Anyway, just leave velociraptors out of your revive efforts, please!