The Passenger Pigeon.....

[MarketHunter]

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

[Bill Murphy]

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.

[MarketHunter]

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

[Mike Franzen]

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?

[MarketHunter]

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.

[Mike Franzen]

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...

[MarketHunter]

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

[charlie cleveland]

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

[MarketHunter]

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.

[Mike Franzen]

Here you go