Passenger pigeon
While the Ivory billed woodpecker may have resurfaced, it does not appear likely that the passenger pigeon will do so. Audubon gave the most unforgettable description of these birds:
"The multitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing. Indeed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, I even now feel inclined to pause, and assure myself that what I am going to relate is fact. Yet I have seen it all, and that too in the company of persons who, like myself, were struck with amazement. In the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens a few miles beyond Hardensburgh, I observed the Pigeons flying from north-east to south-west, in greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before, and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within the reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence, and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for every flock that passed. In a short time finding the task which I had undertaken impracticable, as the birds poured in in countless multitudes, I rose, and counting the dots then put down, found that 163 had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more the farther I proceeded. The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose."
Alexander Wilson commented on these birds in similar terms:
"But the most remarkable characteristic of these birds is their associating together, both in their migrations, and also during the period of incubation, in such prodigious numbers as almost to surpass belief, and which has no parallel among any other of the feathered tribes on the face of the earth with which naturalists are acquainted."
Now, however, in his new book 1491, Charles Mann reports that these observations may have reflected an anomalous situation that arose as a result of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Mann is reporting on the findings of various researchers, which are reported here. This is the substance of Mann's argument, which can be found at pp. 315-18 in his book. Indians and passenger pigeons competed for the same foods: mast (acorns, beechnuts, chestnuts, etc.) and maize. Thus, Indians would have had a strong motive to hunt passenger pigeons. And the birds were notoriously easy to hunt. Audubon described such a hunt:
"Suddenly there burst forth a general cry of "Here they come!" The noise which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men. The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted, and a magnificent, as well as wonderful and almost terrifying, sight presented itself. The Pigeons, arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses were formed on the branches all round. Here and there the perches gave way under the weight with a crash, and, falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded. It was a scene of uproar and confusion. I found it quite useless to speak, or even to shout to those persons who were nearest to me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading."
However, Mann notes, very few bones of passenger pigeons are present at Indian settlement sites which have been excavated by archaeologists. In contrast, bones of seventy two other bird species are found at such sites. The conclusion reached by some researchers, therefore, is that Indians did not hunt passenger pigeons because they did not need to do so - inasmuch as populations of the pigeon were much lower before European contact. The huge numbers of pigeons Audubon saw are described by one archaeologist as "outbreak populations - always a symptom of an extraordinarily disrupted ecological system."
How does this square with the widely accepted view that the passenger pigeon survived only because it was able to gather in large flocks. The reproductive rate of the bird was low and it was highly vulnerable to predation. As one source puts it:
"By the early 1890s the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared. It was now too late to protect them by passing laws. In 1897 a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a ten-year closed season on passenger pigeons. This was a completely futile gesture as the birds still surviving, as lone individuals, were too few to reestablish the species. The passenger pigeon's technique of survival had been based on mass tactics. There had been safety in its large flocks which often numbered hundreds of thousands of birds. When a flock of this size established itself in an area, the number of local animal predators (such as wolves, foxes, weasels, and hawks) was so small compared to the total number of birds that little damage could be inflicted on the flock as a whole." Moreover, these accounts link the decline of species to the reduction in the size of the forest which occurred after European settlement of the Americas.
"Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its existence. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated by shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. However, this did not seem to seriously diminish the total number of birds. The notable decrease of passenger pigeons started when professional hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell in the city markets. Although the birds always had been used as food to some extent, even by the Indians, the real slaughter began in the 1800s. " Audubon himself speculated that forest reduction would endanger the species:
"Persons unacquainted with these birds might naturally conclude that such dreadful havoc would soon put an end to the species. But I have satisfied myself, by long observation, that nothing but the gradual diminution of our forests can accomplish their decrease, as they not unfrequently quadruple their numbers yearly, and always at least double it. In 1805 I saw schooners loaded in bulk with Pigeons caught up the Hudson river, coming in to the wharf at New York, when the birds sold for a cent a piece. I knew a man in Pennsylvania, who caught and killed upwards of 500 dozens in a clap-net in one day, sweeping sometimes twenty dozens or more at a single haul. In the month of March 1830, they were so abundant in the markets of New York, that piles of them met the eye in every direction. I have seen the Negroes at the United States' Salines or Saltworks of Shawanee Town, wearied with killing Pigeons, as they alighted to drink the water issuing from the leading pipes, for weeks at a time; and yet in 1826, in Louisiana, I saw congregated flocks of these birds as numerous as ever I had seen them before, during a residence of nearly thirty years in the United States." But an interesting observation is provided by our old friend Bachman. Audubon quotes him as follows:
My friend Dr. BACHMAN says, in a note sent to me, "In the more cultivated parts of the United States, these birds now no longer breed in communities. I have secured many nests scattered throughout the woods, seldom near each other. Four years ago, I saw several on the mountains east of Lansinburgh, in the State of New York. They were built close to the stems of thin but tall pine trees (Pinus strobus), and were composed of a few sticks; the eggs invariably two, and white. There is frequently but one young bird in the nest, probably from the loose manner in which it has been constructed, so that either a young bird or an egg drops out. Indeed, I have found both at the foot of the tree. This is no doubt accidental, and not to be attributed to a habit which the bird may be supposed to have of throwing out an egg or one of its young. I have frequently taken two of the latter from the same nest and reared them. The Wild Pigeons appear in Carolina during winter at irregular periods, sometimes in cold, but often in warm weather, driven here no doubt, as you have mentioned, not by the cold, but by a failure of mast in the western forests."
Perhaps what Bachman observed was a reversion to nesting habits that had been followed by the pigeon before European settlement.
"The multitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing. Indeed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, I even now feel inclined to pause, and assure myself that what I am going to relate is fact. Yet I have seen it all, and that too in the company of persons who, like myself, were struck with amazement. In the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens a few miles beyond Hardensburgh, I observed the Pigeons flying from north-east to south-west, in greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before, and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within the reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence, and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for every flock that passed. In a short time finding the task which I had undertaken impracticable, as the birds poured in in countless multitudes, I rose, and counting the dots then put down, found that 163 had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more the farther I proceeded. The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose."
Alexander Wilson commented on these birds in similar terms:
"But the most remarkable characteristic of these birds is their associating together, both in their migrations, and also during the period of incubation, in such prodigious numbers as almost to surpass belief, and which has no parallel among any other of the feathered tribes on the face of the earth with which naturalists are acquainted."
Now, however, in his new book 1491, Charles Mann reports that these observations may have reflected an anomalous situation that arose as a result of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Mann is reporting on the findings of various researchers, which are reported here. This is the substance of Mann's argument, which can be found at pp. 315-18 in his book. Indians and passenger pigeons competed for the same foods: mast (acorns, beechnuts, chestnuts, etc.) and maize. Thus, Indians would have had a strong motive to hunt passenger pigeons. And the birds were notoriously easy to hunt. Audubon described such a hunt:
"Suddenly there burst forth a general cry of "Here they come!" The noise which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men. The birds continued to pour in. The fires were lighted, and a magnificent, as well as wonderful and almost terrifying, sight presented itself. The Pigeons, arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses were formed on the branches all round. Here and there the perches gave way under the weight with a crash, and, falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded. It was a scene of uproar and confusion. I found it quite useless to speak, or even to shout to those persons who were nearest to me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading."
However, Mann notes, very few bones of passenger pigeons are present at Indian settlement sites which have been excavated by archaeologists. In contrast, bones of seventy two other bird species are found at such sites. The conclusion reached by some researchers, therefore, is that Indians did not hunt passenger pigeons because they did not need to do so - inasmuch as populations of the pigeon were much lower before European contact. The huge numbers of pigeons Audubon saw are described by one archaeologist as "outbreak populations - always a symptom of an extraordinarily disrupted ecological system."
How does this square with the widely accepted view that the passenger pigeon survived only because it was able to gather in large flocks. The reproductive rate of the bird was low and it was highly vulnerable to predation. As one source puts it:
"By the early 1890s the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared. It was now too late to protect them by passing laws. In 1897 a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a ten-year closed season on passenger pigeons. This was a completely futile gesture as the birds still surviving, as lone individuals, were too few to reestablish the species. The passenger pigeon's technique of survival had been based on mass tactics. There had been safety in its large flocks which often numbered hundreds of thousands of birds. When a flock of this size established itself in an area, the number of local animal predators (such as wolves, foxes, weasels, and hawks) was so small compared to the total number of birds that little damage could be inflicted on the flock as a whole." Moreover, these accounts link the decline of species to the reduction in the size of the forest which occurred after European settlement of the Americas.
"Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its existence. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated by shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. However, this did not seem to seriously diminish the total number of birds. The notable decrease of passenger pigeons started when professional hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell in the city markets. Although the birds always had been used as food to some extent, even by the Indians, the real slaughter began in the 1800s. " Audubon himself speculated that forest reduction would endanger the species:
"Persons unacquainted with these birds might naturally conclude that such dreadful havoc would soon put an end to the species. But I have satisfied myself, by long observation, that nothing but the gradual diminution of our forests can accomplish their decrease, as they not unfrequently quadruple their numbers yearly, and always at least double it. In 1805 I saw schooners loaded in bulk with Pigeons caught up the Hudson river, coming in to the wharf at New York, when the birds sold for a cent a piece. I knew a man in Pennsylvania, who caught and killed upwards of 500 dozens in a clap-net in one day, sweeping sometimes twenty dozens or more at a single haul. In the month of March 1830, they were so abundant in the markets of New York, that piles of them met the eye in every direction. I have seen the Negroes at the United States' Salines or Saltworks of Shawanee Town, wearied with killing Pigeons, as they alighted to drink the water issuing from the leading pipes, for weeks at a time; and yet in 1826, in Louisiana, I saw congregated flocks of these birds as numerous as ever I had seen them before, during a residence of nearly thirty years in the United States." But an interesting observation is provided by our old friend Bachman. Audubon quotes him as follows:
My friend Dr. BACHMAN says, in a note sent to me, "In the more cultivated parts of the United States, these birds now no longer breed in communities. I have secured many nests scattered throughout the woods, seldom near each other. Four years ago, I saw several on the mountains east of Lansinburgh, in the State of New York. They were built close to the stems of thin but tall pine trees (Pinus strobus), and were composed of a few sticks; the eggs invariably two, and white. There is frequently but one young bird in the nest, probably from the loose manner in which it has been constructed, so that either a young bird or an egg drops out. Indeed, I have found both at the foot of the tree. This is no doubt accidental, and not to be attributed to a habit which the bird may be supposed to have of throwing out an egg or one of its young. I have frequently taken two of the latter from the same nest and reared them. The Wild Pigeons appear in Carolina during winter at irregular periods, sometimes in cold, but often in warm weather, driven here no doubt, as you have mentioned, not by the cold, but by a failure of mast in the western forests."
Perhaps what Bachman observed was a reversion to nesting habits that had been followed by the pigeon before European settlement.
posted by Whistling Dixie at 4:57 AM
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