The American Passenger Pigeon, Once Numbered in the Billions, is Extinct

 

Passenger pigeons, estimated at 3 to 5 billion, were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. The last confirmed wild bird is thought to have been shot in 1901. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of this species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.

 

There were so many, seemingly endless numbers, that few people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ever conceived of their extinction.

 

Anthropocene extinction, also known as the sixth mass distinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Anthropocene epoch (age of humans) as a result of human activity. The included extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals.  With widespread degradation of habitats such as coral reefs and rain forests, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates.