Pigeons to the slaughter: How Petoskey helped hunt the passenger pigeon to extinction

[marmar]

(Detroit Free Press) PETOSKEY — In 1914, the very last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Now, 109 years later, passenger pigeons are most famously known as a species driven to extinction.

Historical records state passenger pigeons were once so numerous they darkened the skies when flying overhead. They were so easy to hunt that multiple pigeons could be killed with a single shotgun blast, or simply knocked from the sky with a pole.

But few people know the history of passenger pigeons and Michigan. Large-scale nests — providing migratory homes to millions of birds in one location — were found throughout Northern Michigan. There are records of nests near Boyne Falls and farther south on the Manistee River. The largest nest, however, was found just north of Petoskey near Crooked Lake.

....(snip)....

The pigeons were easy prey, gathering in such large numbers as they did, and the Crooked Lake nest proved an alluring target for hunters. Thousands descended upon the Petoskey area for a gruesome wholesale slaughter. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/history/2023/04/11/pigeons-to-the-slaughter-how-petoskey-helped-hunt-the-passenger-pigeon-to-extinction/70084173007/

[Wednesdays]

2. I had read that while it is conceivable to birth a new passenger pigeon from its DNA,

they would have to hatch countless pigeons in order to succeed, because the pigeons won't reproduce unless they're together in huge numbers. Which is the reason for their demise in the first place.

[modrepub]

3. DeExtinction No Good

unless their primary food source (the American Chestnut) is restored. A Chestnut blight began at the turn of the 20th century and quickly spread across North America. The blight eventually fells the Chestnut tree reducing them to just stumps with suckers. New Chestnut trees eventually succumb to the blight preventing them from bearing nuts. Attempts were made to stop the blight from spreading but eventually that was given up.

Decades later some folks have revived the attempt to back cross and cross breed Chinese Chestnuts, which are blight resistant, to help reestablish the Chestnut trees in North America. That effort continues today. Most states have American Chestnut groups who help identify trees in the wild that have survived the blight and help at developmental plots to eventually reestablish the Chestnuts. Here's one for Penn State https://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/chestnut. My wife an I found a Chestnut tree growing in Minnewaska state park. She shot a picture and sent it to the NY group who maintain a website of know tree locations.

As for the Passenger Pigeon, at one time it was estimated that if you were to grab 10 random birds in North America, 4 would be Passenger Pigeons. They were that common. So common, no one thought they would disappear. Their disappearance helped bring awareness to people that we are stewards of our realm.

There is a site dedicated to this bird: http://passengerpigeon.org/index.html

[yaesu]

4. Like the grasshopper that had 100's of mile swarms that destroyed crops

In the West US, billions of them. Once they found their breeding grounds they were wiped outbby the mid 20th century, extinct.