Life Sciences Unit: Neat Stuff - Ornithology
The Passenger Pigeon – Once Abundant, Now Extinct
The RSM Life Sciences collection includes a specimen of the passenger pigeon, a bird that is now extinct. The passenger pigeon’s extinction is particularly amazing, because only a century ago it was the most numerous species of bird on the Earth, numbering in the billions! During migration, it was common to see flocks a mile wide flying overhead for 4 and 5 hours at a time. The flocks were so thick that a single shot could bring down 30 or 40 birds at a time! So what happened to them?
Although these birds had few natural predators aside from hawks and eagles, they were vulnerable to the activities of humans, since each female only laid one egg per year. In the 1630s, the birds were being used to some extent by First Nations and early settlers for their meat and feathers, but it wasn’t until the 1800s that the mass slaughter began. Well-organized hunters began large-scale operations to supply a cheap source of meat to cities on the east coast of the United States. Enormous numbers of birds were killed. In 1876 alone, 1,600,000 birds were shipped to markets in the east from Michigan! Eventually the flocks became smaller and smaller, and by 1914, the last survivor of the entire species, named Martha, died in captivity.
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The specimen in the RSM’s collection came from Ontario, but the specific circumstances of when or why it was collected are not known. This bird was mounted by a taxidermist, and displayed in early exhibits at the RSM. Now it is available to artists and the scientific community as a reference specimen. |
For further information contact the Curator of Life Sciences.
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