This podcast episode explores the historical past and dramatic extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, as soon as essentially the most quite a few hen on Earth.
On this episode, Gabby and AJ discuss to Mark Avery, writer of A Message from Martha. As a biologist and conservationist, Mark takes us again in time to reconstruct the biology, habitat, and closing period of the Passenger Pigeon. The Passenger Pigeon’s extinction is without doubt one of the most dramatic extinction tales of the twentieth century, ensuing within the lack of essentially the most quite a few hen on Earth. This episode explores all the things from nesting biology and historic accounts to habitat destruction and the final Passenger Pigeon to die in captivity on the Cincinnati Zoo—Martha.
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Passenger Pigeon Episode Podcast Script
Gabby: AJ, I have to say that I completely cherished your article on the extinction of the passenger pigeon that you simply put collectively for the spring challenge of Venture Upland Journal. It was so well-researched, and I realized a ton. What impressed you to jot down it?
AJ: Imagine it or not, it’s a taxidermied specimen of a passenger pigeon that exists on the New Hampshire Fish and Sport headquarters in Harmony. I stroll by this hen each time I am going there, and I at all times cease and have a look at it. After I first observed it, I occurred to be studying the guide 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Earlier than Columbus by Charles C. Mann, which mentions the historical past of the passenger pigeon. Naturally, I bought pulled down a rabbit gap—therefore my inspiration for the article.
Gabby: That’s so cool that you simply’ve really seen a passenger pigeon earlier than. Granted, it wasn’t alive, however nonetheless. And on condition that, I’m assuming you’re acquainted with A. W. Schorger’s guide, The Passenger Pigeon. That writer was a professor within the wildlife ecology division I graduated from at UW-Madison. He was an unbelievable ecologist and truly helped Aldo Leopold begin his profession.
And as a aspect word, his first guide is named Birds of Dane County, and if anybody has a replica or is aware of the place I can discover one, please inform me! I grew up in Dane County, and I might love so as to add it to my assortment.
AJ: At this time’s episode is similar to, I’m positive, the motivation of these ecologists—it’s a couple of cautionary story, a narrative we must always always remember. It’s the true story of how people can create such a big effect that they trigger the extinction of even essentially the most quite a few hen species on Earth.
John Muir: The breast of the male is a superb, rosy pink. The decrease a part of the neck, behind and alongside the perimeters, modifications from the pink of the breast to gold, emerald inexperienced, and wealthy crimson. The final colour of the higher components is grayish blue, the underparts white. The acute size of the hen is about 17 inches, the finely modeled slender tail about 8 inches, and the extent of the wings 24 inches. The females are scarcely much less stunning.
“Oh, what bonny, bonny birds!” we exclaimed over the primary that fell into our arms. “Oh, what colours! Have a look at their breasts, bonny as roses, and at their necks, aglow with each colour, juiced just like the fantastic wooden geese.”
—John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1913.
AJ: I need folks to make use of their creativeness for a second and film the sky crammed with actually hundreds of thousands of birds—so many who the sky darkens in what was known as the “blue meteor.” That was their nickname. And there’s no equal in 2025 that would even assist us conceptualize what that was like.
You’ll be able to consider the largest hen migrations you’ve ever seen in your life, and so they wouldn’t even come shut. The dimensions of this was unforgettable in just about any type of writing whereas this hen nonetheless existed on this continent. It was simply a part of life. And now, it’s gone.
So, to take us again, we’re going to begin with a passage from the well-known John Audubon.
John Audubon: I noticed the pigeons flying from northeast to southwest in better numbers than I assumed I had ever seen earlier than. Feeling an inclination to rely the flocks that may go inside the attain of my eye in a single hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence, and started to mark with my pencil, making a dot for each flock that handed.
I traveled on and nonetheless met extra the farther I proceeded. The air was actually crammed with pigeons. The sunshine of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse. The dung fell in spots, not not like melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a bent to lull my senses to repose. Earlier than sundown, I reached Louisville, distant from Hardinsburg, 55 miles.
The pigeons have been nonetheless passing in undiminished numbers and continued to take action for 3 days in succession. Allow us to take a column of 1 mile in breadth, which is way beneath the common dimension, and suppose it passes over us with out interruption for 3 hours, on the price talked about above—one mile per minute.
This may give us a parallelogram of 180 miles by one, masking 180 sq. miles. Permitting two pigeons per sq. yard, we’ve 1,115,136,000 pigeons in a single flock.
—John James Audubon, Kentucky, 1813.
AJ: So once I wrote the article for the spring challenge, I went down one severe rabbit gap on why the passenger pigeon went extinct. I learn the books 1491, The Passenger Pigeon, A Feathered River Throughout the Sky, and A Message from Martha. I discovered historic accounts written by people like John Audubon and theories exploring how Indigenous folks managed passenger pigeon populations.
However truthfully, after writing the article, I nonetheless didn’t really feel like I had exhausted the topic sufficient. I needed to take issues a step additional. And naturally, we reached out to Mark Avery, the writer of A Message from Martha.
Gabby: Whereas many museum specimens of passenger pigeons exist at the moment, there isn’t a single individual alive on Earth who has seen a residing one.
However earlier than we get an excessive amount of farther, let’s set up what a passenger pigeon is. Or, ought to I say—was.
Mark: Properly, it’s important to ask, what was the passenger pigeon? The passenger pigeon was a hen that lived within the USA and Canada, however they’ve been extinct now for over a century. In actual fact, it’s been 110 years.
I’m Mark Avery. I’m a scientist by coaching. I’ve labored in nature conservation, largely hen conservation, within the UK. I’m an environmental activist, and I’ve written some books. One of many books I wrote was concerning the passenger pigeon as a result of I feel it’s a extremely fascinating species with a tremendous story.
The passenger pigeon was, for positive—completely for positive—essentially the most quite a few hen on the planet that has ever existed. And but, it went from essentially the most plentiful hen when it comes to numbers to extinct inside a human technology.
So it’s important to think about a time when nearly in all places east of the Mississippi was forest, and the passenger pigeon was a forest hen. It nested in bushes, it roosted in bushes at evening, and it ate the seeds of bushes. However its meals sources have been unpredictable—it was plentiful in some locations in some years however absent or uncommon in those self same locations more often than not.
The passenger pigeon was a tremendous hen as a result of it was nomadic. The colonies have been huge! They contained tens of hundreds of thousands—tons of of hundreds of thousands—of pairs of birds. In order that they wanted to be in areas surrounded by forests.
There’s nothing at the moment in North America or Europe that has a life-style like that. It was distinctive.
John Muir: It was an awesome, memorable day when the primary flock of passenger pigeons got here to our farm, calling to thoughts the story we had examine them after we have been in school in Scotland. Of all God’s feathered those that sailed the Wisconsin sky, no different hen appeared to us so fantastic.
The attractive wanderers flew just like the winds in flocks of hundreds of thousands from local weather to local weather in accord with the climate, discovering their meals—acorns, beech nuts, pine nuts, cranberries, strawberries, huckleberries, juniper berries, hackberries, buckwheat, rice, wheat, oats, corn—in fields and forests hundreds of miles aside.
I’ve seen flocks streaming south within the fall, so giant that they flowed from horizon to horizon in an nearly steady stream, all day lengthy, on the price of 40 or 50 miles an hour.
Like a mighty river within the sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls and cataracts, and rising abruptly right here and there in enormous, ragged plenty, like high-plashing spray.
How fantastic have been the distances they flew in a day, in a 12 months, in a lifetime.
—John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1913.
AJ: Passenger pigeons developed to reside in old-growth forests east of the Mississippi River. They relied on mature oak, beech, chestnut, and different tree species for meals, nesting, and survival.
Gabby: That’s fascinating as a result of at the moment, the states east of the Mississippi are not dominated by old-growth forests. In actual fact, they’re nowhere close to as thickly forested as they have been over a century in the past. Plus, the American chestnut tree is sort of extinct itself.
AJ: The place I reside in New Hampshire, it’s nonetheless 82% forested. However as Avery identified in his guide, locations like Ohio, which have been main components of the passenger pigeon’s vary at first European contact, have been as a lot as 95% forested. Avery talked about that by 1853, Ohio was solely 54% forested, by 1883, simply 18%, and by 1900, solely about 10% of the state had forest left.
Gabby: Clearly, the habitat that passenger pigeons as soon as required not exists at the moment. However again then, when it did, hundreds of thousands of those birds traveled tons of of miles over enormous swaths of forest in quest of mature, mast-producing bushes. Due to their nomadic way of life and reliance on huge quantities of acorns, beech nuts, and different nutritious meals, it’s believed that that they had a really distinctive breeding habits.
Mark: You need to piece this collectively from plenty of little bits of what folks stated—and a few folks have been a bit unreliable. And since you possibly can’t look them within the eye, as a result of they’ve been lifeless for over 100 or 150 years, it’s fairly tough to work out which of them it’s best to consider and which of them you shouldn’t.
And they’d hatch fairly shortly, really—the younger in about two and a half weeks, one thing like that. After which, I feel—it is a little bit of hypothesis—however I feel the adults typically flew additional north and nested once more. So it was a giant rush to nest efficiently, or perhaps unsuccessfully, however then transfer on and have one other go.
However all the things was rushed on a regular basis as a result of they have been making an attempt to use a diminishing meals useful resource whereas it was nonetheless there. The pigeons flew north because the snow was melting within the higher a part of their vary as a result of that meant autumn’s provide of acorns and different meals can be uncovered. They may test it out, have a look at it, and discover the most effective locations.
Then they’d construct their quite simple nests—just some twigs. They laid a single egg and began incubating instantly. When it hatched, the adults—it is a basic factor with pigeons—would fly off, choose up meals, and convey it again to the nest to feed the younger.
The adults would go off, feed, and stuff themselves filled with meals. Then they produced a secretion, often called pigeon milk, which they fed to their younger within the nest. It’s not a really bird-like approach of doing it, however as a result of that’s how the passenger pigeon developed, it should have labored fairly properly for tens of hundreds of years.
However then, when our species began throwing challenges at them, their biology—properly, that’s when it grew to become an issue.
Gabby: Usually talking, it’s uncommon for feminine birds to put a single egg. Nonetheless, this technique is fairly regular when referring to doves and pigeons.
Mourning doves sometimes lay 1–3 eggs per clutch and might lay as much as six clutches per 12 months. Eurasian collared doves lay 1–2 eggs 3–6 occasions per 12 months. Rock doves incubate 1–2 eggs 5–6 occasions a 12 months.
Band-tailed pigeons lay one egg one to 2 occasions a 12 months, so apparently, it is a widespread breeding habits for birds within the Columbidae household, of which the passenger pigeon was a member.
When you think about that passenger pigeons have been estimated to reside about six years on common and laid one egg two to 4 occasions a 12 months, it’s doable that every hen raised between 5 and eighteen nestlings all through its life.
After all, I’m not making an attempt to estimate nestling survival right here, since not each chick would have lived to maturity, however this nesting technique would have supported inhabitants development.
AJ: Whereas this breeding technique was regular for them, it may need made them extra weak to extinction as soon as their inhabitants began to say no.
Now we’re going so as to add one other distinctive variable to their nesting technique—the dilution impact, which, as we’ll see later within the story, might have had catastrophic penalties.
The gist of the dilution impact is that there’s security in numbers. Any single pigeon is much less more likely to be predated upon if it’s residing in a big group—on this case, a gaggle of hundreds of thousands of birds.
Mark: Pigeons are fairly tasty. We eat pigeons. I can purchase pigeon breasts—not passenger pigeons, however wooden pigeons—in my native grocery store or off a stall. Some farms will promote them to me.
And all the things else within the woods eats pigeons too. Many colonial birds that nest collectively collectively defend their colony and their nests in opposition to predators.
However the pigeon—or the dove—isn’t known as an indication of peace for nothing. These are pacifist birds. They don’t have sharp beaks, and so they’re not aggressive. They’re not even very aggressive towards one another.
Their type of protection in opposition to predation—all this stuff taking a look at them and pondering, Oh yeah, I fairly fancy consuming a few of that—was to nest in enormous colonies.
Predators couldn’t are available from 50 miles away to money in on this meals. It was simply the native ones—those that lived within the woods close by, perhaps inside 5 or ten miles. However if you happen to’re speaking a couple of colony of 100 million passenger pigeons or extra, then the influence of these predators was diluted.
That’s why it’s known as the dilution impact. Just by nesting in huge numbers, even when each predator close by needed to eat them—and so they have been consuming some—they couldn’t eat sufficient to make a lot of a distinction as a result of the pigeons have been so quite a few. That’s what we’d count on, actually. So I feel that’s in all probability true.
That does imply they needed to nest in very giant numbers, although. And because the passenger pigeon declined, that grew to become much less and fewer efficient—till, finally, it stopped working altogether.
John Lawson: At the present time, considered one of our firm, with a Sapona Indian who attended Stewart, went again for the horses. Within the meantime, we went to shoot pigeons, which have been so quite a few in these components that you simply would possibly see many hundreds of thousands in a flock. They often break up off the limbs of stout oaks and different bushes upon which they roosted at evening.
It’s possible you’ll discover a number of Indian cities, of not above 17 homes, which have greater than 100 gallons of pigeon oil, or fats. They use it with pulse, or bread, as we do butter, and it makes the bottom as white as a sheet with their dung. The Indians take a lightweight and go amongst them at evening, bringing away some hundreds, killing them with lengthy poles as they roost within the bushes.
Presently of the 12 months, the flocks, as they go by, in nice measure hinder the sunshine of the day.
—John Lawson, 1709.
AJ: As a passenger pigeon, you don’t need to be distinctive. You don’t need to stand out. You need to be one within the crowd—and hopefully not one on the sting of the gang. The birds additional away from the sting would have felt a better sense of security and stood a lesser likelihood of predation.
Gabby: Precisely. Nesting websites, particularly, drew a variety of predators, together with people like market hunters and in earlier Indigenous histories. In contrast to market hunters, Indigenous folks had very strict ethics when it got here to partaking with these large nesting websites. There may be even proof of individuals being exiled for breaking these ideas.
AJ: The guide 1491 talked about a concept that Indigenous folks have been really retaining the passenger pigeon inhabitants in examine. The guide argues that European ailments precipitated the deaths of a good portion of the Indigenous inhabitants. The elimination of this human predator then grew to become the explanation why the passenger pigeon inhabitants exploded.
Whereas this concept is hotly debated, the guide presents fossil proof to help it. We even have early written information indicating that passenger pigeon fats was essential to many Indigenous folks’s survival, a lot as we extra generally perceive the significance of bear fats as a winter meals supply. It was a serious staple of their eating regimen.
Gabby: So the reality is, our early written proof of the passenger pigeon inhabitants—which comes fully from European encounters—might really be describing a inhabitants that had skilled exponential development.
This actually makes me take into consideration the kind of influence passenger pigeons had on the panorama—creating forest disturbances, spreading vitamins by means of their droppings throughout huge areas, and the cascading results that may occur in two instructions: overpopulation and underpopulation.
Mark: I imply, the fertilizing impact can be unfold over a pretty big space—until all of them determined to carry it in till they bought again to the colony. And gosh, they need to’ve been smelly locations anyway.
However that may have been unfold over fairly a big space. Completely, all these birds—even in a forest—have been sure to have an impact. I feel the huge quantity of deposition and the sheer weight of birds would have wrecked some areas of forest.
However that’s a bit like hearth and different pure disturbances. It destroys patches—typically fairly giant patches—however then it simply grows again. It takes time. Timber take a very long time to develop, however it could have been a part of the pure course of.
I feel one of many issues we sort of know is that there wasn’t an enormous change within the species composition of American forests earlier than and after the passenger pigeon. So it’s not as if, when the passenger pigeon declined and went extinct within the wild, two or three species of native bushes abruptly grew to become extra widespread on the expense of others.
However there was one other steered influence. A billion passenger pigeons consuming all these protein-rich seeds—in the event that they weren’t eaten by passenger pigeons, they have been in all probability going to be eaten by different issues.
One species which will have benefited is deer. Their numbers have actually gone up. That could be resulting from different elements as properly, however they’ve elevated considerably within the final 50 years. That doesn’t take us proper again to the time of the passenger pigeon, however as deer populations have gone up, so have tick populations. And ailments unfold by ticks have elevated in folks within the japanese U.S.
So some have steered that it’s conceivable—and I feel it’s conceivable—that eradicating that large seed consumption by passenger pigeons might have affected the biomass of deer, and possibly rodents as properly. And all of those animals carry ticks, which unfold ailments that may have an effect on you and me if we go for a stroll within the woods.
Gabby: A lot of the passenger pigeon story takes place up to now. Nonetheless, this species’ legacy continues at the moment, particularly on the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio.
There, zoo-goers can observe a statue of Martha, the final passenger pigeon—the hen for which Mark Avery’s guide is called—together with an empty cage and a plaque devoted to her and her species’ existence.
Mark: For those who go to the Cincinnati Zoo—I’ve been there twice to have a look at the cage the place Martha was stored and the place she died. I’ve sat there on a busy day within the zoo, and the one factor I checked out was this cage the place a passenger pigeon died and that bronze statue.
Hardly anyone else appears to be like on the cage. All people goes off to see the gorillas.
If I have been eight years outdated, I’d need to see the gorillas, not an empty cage.
The final passenger pigeon on Earth. Simply think about that. The final particular person of a species on Earth died in a cage round lunchtime, native time, on September 1, 1914. And when that hen, who was known as Martha, died, there have been no extra passenger pigeons on the planet.
However no person actually stops to have a look at the bronze statue, and no person reads the plaque on the statue, which says, in impact, That is the place the final passenger pigeon, known as Martha, died.
We must do a bit higher with nature conservation sooner or later. And that, I feel, is the message from Martha.
AJ: One of the crucial intriguing elements concerning the closing chapter of the passenger pigeon’s historical past is its seemingly abrupt disappearance. Whereas there isn’t any doubt that human exploitation by means of market searching performed a job, Joel Greenberg wrote in A Feathered River Throughout the Sky, I’ve struggled to simply accept as ample the purported elements that decreased a billion or extra birds to zero in 4 a long time.
So how did we go from all these birds to abruptly nothing? This led folks to provide you with some wild concepts.
Gabby: One of the crucial imaginative theories concerning the extinction of the final passenger pigeon populations seems in William Mershon’s 1907 guide, The Passenger Pigeon. Within the chapter titled A Novel Concept of Extinction, Mershon means that the final flocks flew out over the ocean or the Nice Lakes in quest of meals and nesting grounds, finally perishing there.
This concept isn’t accepted at the moment.
AJ: I really like outdated conspiracy theories within the birding world. They’ve an additional degree of madness that I discover fairly entertaining. Though I’m on no account an professional on this subject, evidently these books collectively inform an extended story that begins in 1492.
We now have an enormous shift in human populations, we’ve market searching, and I feel the precise loss of life kiss was deforestation.
Gabby: I’m going to need to agree that the destruction of old-growth forests is basically the smoking gun right here. And I’m not saying that each one forests have to be outdated development. As a substitute, our forests have to be a posh matrix of younger and old-growth stands with various age courses that meet an array of wildlife wants.
All of the conversations we’ve about birds—it doesn’t matter what street we take—it at all times leads again to habitat.
On this case, I actually take into consideration a couple of issues. First, these birds ran out of choices for his or her migration. They couldn’t clear out meals sources from mature bushes as a result of there weren’t any left. In different phrases, they skilled meals shortages.
This, mixed with the introduction of recent European avian ailments that that they had no earlier immunity to, was a loss of life sentence. Once you mix wildlife ailments with the destruction of high quality habitat, survival turns into actually tough.
For the passenger pigeon, with out habitat and huge numbers, their dilution impact survival technique made them extraordinarily weak.
AJ: Precisely, and take it a step additional. As a result of now, with decreased populations, the dilution technique not labored.
Greenberg notes that by the 1870s, passenger pigeons had begun abandoning their nesting websites. In his phrases, With the ever-increasing depth of exploitation, the birds grew to become much less tolerant of disturbances and faster to surrender their breeding aspirations.
Gabby: As forests vanished, the supply of appropriate nesting and wintering places dwindled. This shortage elevated the pigeons’ vulnerability to predation. With fewer locations to go, their actions grew to become much more predictable—even for people engaged in market searching.
So in the event that they stopped efficiently breeding, particularly with just one egg per clutch, we will actually account for the dramatic, nearly in a single day decline.
Habitat loss precipitated a cascading impact that we couldn’t cease.
AJ: We all know what it’s prefer to reside with out the passenger pigeon. So let’s dive into one thing we’ve explored earlier than—the thought of what ifs.
What if these birds have been nonetheless right here at the moment? And the brutal query—might they survive? And even, ought to they?
Mark: I feel it could be fairly tough. And I do know that some persons are taking a look at a Jurassic Park-type answer—getting DNA from museum specimens and making an attempt to carry passenger pigeons again.
I’m not thrilled by that prospect. There are higher issues you can spend the cash on. After all, it’s not my cash, so…
However if you happen to might carry passenger pigeons again, let’s think about we might get tons of of hundreds of thousands of them once more.
Would you need to be at Chicago O’Hare Airport and be informed that your flight isn’t leaving at the moment as a result of an unlimited flock of passenger pigeons is flying over the flight path of the touchdown and takeoff routes?
You’d be thrilled, wouldn’t you? I don’t suppose so.
And even when they didn’t disrupt airports—which they undoubtedly would typically—we do know that they grew to become agricultural pests to some extent. There’s an terrible lot of wheat grown in America, and so they wouldn’t be very welcome in at the moment’s world.
I’d reasonably think about how they was once and want it was nonetheless a bit extra like that. However we will’t carry again the habitat.
Gabby: The truth that trendy North America actually couldn’t help this hen at the moment, even when we might carry them again, is kind of the fact examine. That is ecology boiled right down to its harshest diploma.
And this isn’t the one sport hen this has occurred to—for instance, the heath hen. Moreover, there are birds just like the Gunnison sage grouse and lesser prairie hen which might be flying down this similar path to extinction at the moment.
AJ: Regardless of our human need for a easy rationalization of how this species went extinct, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for positive.
We didn’t even handle the theories of cascading results their extinction had on different species—from crops and bugs to predators and herbivores.
I hope this all serves as a reminder that people have an effect—and when unchecked, the power to trigger the extinction of even essentially the most quite a few hen species on Earth.
Ecology doesn’t usually have fast advantages, but it surely ought to at all times be the bedrock of how we proceed.
We’ll by no means see darkened skies. We’ll by no means hear the deafening sound. We’ll by no means have the privilege of their existence at the moment.
However we did our greatest to journey again in time—and to recollect this forgotten icon.
Gabby: One factor we don’t want a time machine to see is the Passenger Pigeon Monument at Wyalusing State Park in Wisconsin.
Aldo Leopold wrote about it in his 1953 essay A Monument for a Misplaced Fowl, and this excerpt wraps up our episode fairly properly:
“Males nonetheless reside who, of their youth, keep in mind pigeons. Timber nonetheless reside who, of their youth, have been shaken by a residing wind. However a decade therefore, solely the oldest oaks will keep in mind, and in the end, solely the hills will know.”
Mark: After I’ve traveled across the USA, I’m not stunned by this—and this isn’t a criticism—however I discover hardly anyone who’s ever heard of a passenger pigeon.
Now, I do know they’ve been gone for over a century, so no person misses the passenger pigeon. It’s solely, I feel, folks such as you—since you’ve requested to speak to me about this—and other people like me, as a result of I’m a biologist and a conservationist. I discover these tales actually fascinating.
A number of hen watchers actually, actually attempt to keep in mind, however there’s nothing for us to recollect.
None of us has seen a passenger pigeon alive, and positively, none of us has seen a flock of passenger pigeons a mile broad flying overhead all day lengthy.
Our species has forgotten them. We don’t consider them.
Learn Extra
Failed Sport Fowl Introductions in North America
The Lesser Prairie-Hen Has Been Listed Endangered
The Unlucky Story of the Heath Hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido)
