Posted on 08/31/2014 8:50:42 PM PDT by chessplayer
Tomorrow marks exactly 100 years since the last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
At their peak, millions — some argue billions — of passenger pigeons flew together, creating such a ruckus as to make normal conversation a challenge. Yet their numbers diminished rapidly, plunging perilously close to extinction within just a few decades thanks to our voracious appetite for the birds. Then they flamed out completely, the last wild one shot in 1900 and Martha dying 14 years later. “The bird was hunted out of existence,” wrote journalist Barry Yeoman in Audubon magazine, “victimized by the fallacy that no amount of exploitation could endanger a creature so abundant.”
That the species went extinct still shocks the system. Consider their abundance.
We need to imagine Martha asking us, ‘Have you learned anything from my passing?’”
(Excerpt) Read more at weather.com ...
Nothing special.
Tasted like chicken.
“We need to imagine Martha asking us, ‘Have you learned anything from my passing?’”
Homo Sapiens answer = “of course not. that would require intelligence.”
This sounds a lot like the Islamist vision for the Israeli people, Chrisitian people, Catholic people, Asian people, etc., i.e., anyone who isn’t exactly like them.
Quite a few years ago I read a great detective story on the passenger pigeon.
I don’t remember much but after one blizzard they discovered the passenger pigeons had been caught in it and there were literally millions of them dead in the ice/snow.
Read the comments at the end of the article. One guy makes an innocuous joke about not crying over a dead pigeon, and three "compassionate" environuts go ballistic. One even calls him a cold-blooded psychopath.
Leftists are so endearing.
This happened before limits were placed on hunting. Hunters would use put guns, very large bore shotguns, to shoot hundreds at a time.
Now if they can just do the same to those damn starlings.
I disagree. There are tons of species of life on Earth that are more plentiful.
We need to imagine Martha asking us, ‘Have you learned anything from my passing?’”
“Uh, yeah! Dinosaurs had more meat and made better ribs!” I snidely responded “And! And! You were too much work to feed a growing family.
Good Riddance!”.
True. Worse still, most of this happened on their breeding grounds or on overnight roosts. These birds were gregarious, too.
All said, a very bad combination of circumstances for this species at that time in America.
Allow me to be the first:
Bush’s fault.
I often read the repeated line that a squirrel could have traveled from Georgia to Maine via chestnut tree and never touch the ground.
Nice little Appalachian trail for squirrels.
I never really bought into the line that the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction any more than I believe logging wiped out the American chestnuts.
And the moon is made of cheese. Don’t let them traitorous, muzzy, commie scientists try to convince you it’s not.
When I was young about 8 or 9 years old, I used to go in to Philly to the Philadelphia Bulletin office, and they (the newspaper) were still using carrier pigeons. Even in the dead of winter, they kept a window open in the "Heigh-De-Ho" office so the pigeons could fly in.
I went to Philly alone on the Reading Railroad (it was safe in those days) I SAW those carrier pigeons with my own eyes. People sent messages via little tubes that were attached to the pigeon's legs. The sender would write the message, fold up the paper very small and put it in the tube on the pigeon's leg.
Anyway, my point is, carrier pigeons did not die out at the turn of the century because my grandfather raised them, and I saw them in use up to at least 1942.
I know. Why weren't regular pigeons, dove, quail, turkey, grouse or migratory waterfowl hunted to extinction? I think it was disease that did the passenger pigeon in.
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