Passenger Pigeons
(Columbidae - Please see also Doves)
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The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was once probably the most common bird in the world. It is estimated that there were as many as five billion Passenger Pigeons in the United States. They lived in enormous flocks—the largest of them a mile (1.6 km) wide and 300 miles (500 km) long, taking several days to pass and probably containing two billion birds. It was hunted into extinction by humans.
In Algonquian languages, it was called amimi by the Lenape and omiimii by the Ojibwe.
Life and extinction
The Passenger Pigeon was a very social bird. It lived in colonies with up to a hundred nests in a single tree, and stretching over hundreds of square miles. During summer, Passenger Pigeons lived throughout the part of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. In the winter, they lived in the southern U.S.
It was hunted for food, hog feed, as live targets for trap shooting and even sometimes as agricultural fertilizer, and shipped by the boxcar-load to the Eastern cities. In New York City in 1805, a brace (pair) of pigeons sold for two cents. Slaves and servants in 18th and 19th century America often saw no other meat. Commercial hunters harvested them in huge amounts for food, and most restaurants in the Eastern United States served pigeon to customers. 3 million pigeons were shipped by a single market hunter in the year 1878. Alcohol-soaked grain intoxicated birds and made them easier to kill. Smoky fires were set to nesting trees, causing the young birds to jump from their nests into hunters bags.
Source: Wikipedia.orgRelated Web Resources: Passenger Pigeon (Extinct) .... Passenger Pigeon ... The Dove Page
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