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Passenger Pigeon

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Birds

                iPassenger Pigeon
   Male Passenger Pigeon--chromolithograph
   Male Passenger Pigeon--chromolithograph

                             Conservation status

   Extinct  ( 1914)
            Scientific classification

   Kingdom: Animalia
   Phylum:  Chordata
   Class:   Aves
   Order:   Columbiformes
   Family:  Columbidae
   Genus:   Ectopistes
            Swainson, 1827
   Species: E. migratorius

                                Binomial name

   Ectopistes migratorius
   (Linnaeus, 1766)

   The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct species of
   pigeon that was once probably the most common bird in the world . It is
   estimated that there were as many as five billion Passenger Pigeons in
   the United States. They lived in enormous flocks—the largest of them a
   mile (1.6 km) wide and 300 miles (500 km) long, taking several days to
   pass and probably containing two billion birds.

   In the 18th century, the Passenger Pigeon in Europe was known to the
   French as "tourtre" but in New France the North American bird was
   called "tourte". In modern French the bird is known as the pigeon
   migrateur.

   In Algonquian languages, it was called amimi by the Lenape and omiimii
   by the Ojibwe.

Life and extinction

   The Passenger Pigeon was a very social bird. It lived in colonies
   stretching over hundreds of square miles, with up to a hundred nests in
   a single tree. During summer, Passenger Pigeons lived throughout the
   part of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. In the winter, they
   lived in the southern U.S.

   The Passenger Pigeon was extensively hunted for food, hog feed, as live
   targets for trap shooting and even sometimes as agricultural
   fertilizer, and shipped by the boxcar-load to the Eastern cities. In
   New York City, in 1805, a brace (pair) of pigeons sold for two cents.
   Slaves and servants in 18th and 19th century America often saw no other
   meat. Commercial hunters harvested them in huge amounts for food, and
   most restaurants in the Eastern United States served pigeon to
   customers. 3 million pigeons were shipped by a single market hunter in
   the year 1878. Alcohol-soaked grain intoxicated the birds and made them
   easier to kill. Smoky fires were set to nesting trees, causing the
   young birds to jump from their nests into hunters bags. All these
   factors greatly contributed to the Passenger Pigeon's extinction in the
   early 20th century.
   1898 photograph of Passenger Pigeon by Mr Hubbard.
   Enlarge
   1898 photograph of Passenger Pigeon by Mr Hubbard.
   Male and Female specimens at the Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport, New
   York.
   Enlarge
   Male and Female specimens at the Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport, New
   York.

   In the mid-1800s, it was noticeable that their numbers were dropping.
   The Passenger Pigeon only laid one egg at a time, so once numbers
   started to decline it would have taken time for them to start rising
   again.

   Other significant reasons for its extinction were deforestation (the
   birds relied on acorn and beech mast for breeding and shifted or
   occupied their breeding colonies in accordance with the food trees'
   mast year cycle), and probably social factors—the birds seemed to have
   initiated courtship and reproduction when they were gathered in large
   numbers; it was noted that small groups of Passenger Pigeons were
   notoriously difficult to get to breed successfully.

Martha

   Female Passenger Pigeon
   Enlarge
   Female Passenger Pigeon

   The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on
   September 1, 1914. She was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the
   Smithsonian Institution and was skinned and mounted. Martha is no
   longer on display, but is in the archived collection.

Popular Culture

     * The musician John Herald wrote a song about Martha: "Martha (Last
       of the Passenger Pigeons)". Also, the indie rock band Paint by
       Numbers wrote a song titled "Sweet Sweet Martha" to commemorate her
       death.

     * The April 27, 1948 episode of the Fibber McGee and Molly radio
       program is titled "The Passenger Pigeon Trap", in which McGee
       claims to have seen a Passenger Pigeon (he insists that the bird is
       " stinct") and plans to trap it in order to sell it to the highest
       bidder. It turns out to be nothing more than a Rock Pigeon (Columba
       livia) sitting on top of a bus, which in McGee's mind makes the
       pigeon a passenger.

     * In " The Man Trap," the premiere episode of Star Trek, Professor
       Crater likens the near-extinction of the inhabitants of planet M113
       to the demise of the passenger pigeon.

     * Stephen King makes a number of references to the Passenger Pigeon
       in the 2005 Novel " Cell". He uses the Passenger pigeon as an
       allegory to the new human hive mind that develops after the pulse
       hits the United States.

     * In the 1999 movie by Jim Jarmusch, Ghost Dog: The Way of the
       Samurai, Louie ( John Tormey) identifies the bird owned by the
       titular character as a " carrier pigeon". He is corrected by an
       elderly mafioso who shouts, "Passenger pigeon! Passenger pigeon!
       They've been extinct since 1914!" (The bird was in fact one of the
       homing pigeons Ghost Dog used to transport - "carry" - notes, which
       explains Louie's misidentification).

     * The term "stool pigeon" was first coined when Passenger Pigeons
       were captured, had their eyelids sewn shut, and were tied to
       stools. The birds sitting on the stools would be used as live
       decoys so Pigeon hunters would have an easier shot at their quarry.
       Today it is a term used for an unscrupulous person giving
       information about someone's misbehaviour or illegal activity .

     * Ectopistes Migratorius is the second chapter of the novel Havana
       Glam ( 2001) by Wu Ming 5. The reapperance of the pigeons in 1944
       is the first signal of the arrival of time travellers from XXI
       century USA

   Across North America, place-names refer to the former abundance of the
   Passenger Pigeon. Examples include:
     * Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
     * Pigeon Rivers in: Minnesota-Ontario, North Carolina/Tennessee,
       Michigan (four), and Wisconsin
     * Pigeon Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin
     * Pigeon Roost, Indiana
     * Crockford Pigeon Mountain, Georgia
     * Mimico, a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The name means
       "The Place of the Passenger Pigeons".

Coextinction

   Passenger Pigeon specimens can be seen in the Field Museum, Chicago
   Enlarge
   Passenger Pigeon specimens can be seen in the Field Museum, Chicago

   An often-cited example of coextinction is that of the Passenger Pigeon
   and its parasitic lice Columbicola extinctus and Campanulotes defectus.
   Recently, C. extinctus was rediscovered on the Band-tailed Pigeon, and
   C. defectus was found to be a likely case of misidentification of the
   existing Campanulotes flavus. However, even though the story of
   Passenger Pigeon lice has a happy ending (rediscovery), it is uncertain
   whether coextinctions of other parasites, even on the Passenger Pigeon,
   have occurred.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
