The passenger pigeon is an example of human folly

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Stories of the extinction of the once numerous species of animals and birds repeatedly emphasize the cruelty and shortsightedness of mankind. This is evidenced by the extermination of a huge number of passenger pigeons, which in the 18th and early 19th centuries were the most numerous birds not only on the American continent, but throughout the world.

The main habitat of this amazing bird was North America. The passenger pigeon got its name because of the habit of moving in flocks from place to place in search of food. Having eaten everything in one area, the flock rose into the sky, flying to another forest. The birds mainly fed on tree seeds, acorns, nuts and chestnuts. They settled in huge colonies, numbering up to one billion individuals.

Up to a hundred pigeons nested on one tree. Each nest had only one egg, but birds could raise several chicks in one year. Their number wasso huge that during flights they covered the sun with themselves, and from the flapping wings there was such a noise that it laid ears. The passenger pigeon had a fairly good speed, flying one mile per minute, that is, it could cross the ocean and fly to Europe in just three days.

In the 19th century, the American government decided to exterminate this bird species. Since the meat of the dove was edible, the hunters were immediately found. People came at night to the habitats of birds, cut down trees, killing chicks and adults. They shot at the unfortunate with rifles and pistols, even a stone thrown into a flock killed several pigeons at once.

An extinct bird was then sold in the markets for 1 cent for two carcasses. Their bodies were loaded into wagons and sent to big cities for sale, people s alted pigeons, and then fed them to domestic animals, made fertilizer from them. Between 1860 and 1870, about a million individuals were exterminated. Then every year the passenger pigeon began to appear less and less, the flocks noticeably thinned out, but this did not stop the bloodthirsty hunters.

The last member of this species was killed in 1899. The Americans immediately started up, realizing what they had done, but it was too late. The passenger pigeon was wiped off the face of the earth in just a few decades. The government promised a one million dollar reward for the discovery of a pair of birds, but all in vain.

No one wants to blame themselves, so various reasons for the disappearance of this species of birds were invented. According to one of them,pigeons went to the North Pole, but, unable to withstand the harsh conditions, died. The second theory said that the remaining bird colony went to Australia, but a terrible storm caught it on the way, so the whole flock drowned. Perhaps this species simply could not exist in small colonies, and therefore died.

Whatever it was, but the blame for the disappearance of passenger pigeons falls entirely on the shoulders of man. Extinct birds have become a vivid confirmation of the greed, cruelty, bloodthirstiness and stupidity of people. A man was able to destroy the most numerous species of birds in such a short time and did not even notice in time that they were on the verge of extinction. If it goes on like this, then soon the planet will become deserted and gloomy. We ourselves cut the branches we sit on and don't even notice it.