Evening star., 1945-03-09
This and That
By Charles z. TrdceUeH.
PENNSYLVANIA AVE Sc.

I CISNO LfANlh AVE, . e
Dear Sir:
In your story in today's Evening
Star on the turtle dove you speak of
willful determination of the wild pigeon.
L write, not to criticize or dispute,
but to inquire whether it is not general
ly thought that the pigeons were ex-
terminated by some unknown disease,
or possibly swept out to sea by a great
storm?
These birds were here in my boy
hood, in the 1870s. 1t seems unlikely
that they could have been all killed by
hunters, while no such fate has come
to other game birds, not even the wild
turkey and pheasants.
Sincerely yours, j. M. D."
4
Our correspondents ideas are those
often held by persons innocently de-
sirous of removing from man the stigma
of a great shame.
Edward Howe Forbush, the eminent
naturalist, gives the true reasons for
the extinction of the beautiful pas
senger pigeon. He states:
While the big nestings of 1878 and
1881 in Michigan were the last i'm
mense breeding places of passenger
pigeons on record, the species did not
become extinct in a day or a year; they
were not wiped from the face of the
earth by any great catastrophe they
gradually became fewer and fewer for
20 to Is years after the date set by the
pigeoners as that of the last great
migration.
Efforts have been made to account
for the supposed sudden disappearance
of the pigeons by tales of cyclonic sea
disturbances or lake storms, which are
supposed to have drowned practically
all of them. Undoubtedly thousands of
pigeons were destroyed occasionally,
during their flights, by storms or fogs
at sea or on the Great Lakes.
Some of the pigeons may have been
driven by persecution to the far North
to breed, in the latter part of the 18th
century, and they may have been
destroyed by unreasonable storms, for
many species are subject to periodical
reduction by the elements; but the whole
history of the last 80 years of the ex-
istence of the passenger pigeon goes to
prove that the birds were SO persistent
ly molested that they finally lost their
conference, were scattered far and wide
and became extinct mainly through
constant persecution by man.
while they existed in large colonies,
the orphaned young were taken care of
by their neighbors. This communal
habit of feeding preserved the species
so long as the birds nested in large
colonies; but when they became scat
tered the young starved when their
parents were killed.
y
"The passenger pigeon was not a
suspicious bird, as birds co. it was
easily taken. 1t reproduced slowly,
laid but few eggs and when its in
Vulnerable multitudes were reduced and
its f1ocks were dispersed, the end came
rapidly.
''It often is asked how it was possible
for man to kill them all. 1t was not
possible, nor was it requisite that he
should do so, in order to exterminate
them. All that was required to bring
about this result was to destroy large
part of the young birds Matched each
year. Nature cut off the rest.
determination must have resulted
under such conditions, even If no man
ever killed an adult passenger pigeon
The pigeons were not immortal. Even
if undisturbed by man, they gave up
the ghost in few years; but they were
not undisturbed. No adequate attempt
to protect them was made until they
practically had disappeared.
Whenever law looking toward the
conservation of these birds was pro-
posed, in any State, its opponents
argued before the legislative commit
tees that the pigeons needed no pro-
lection; that their numbers were so
vast and that they ranged over such q
great extent of country, that they were
amply able to take care of themselves.
This argument defeated all measures
that might have given adequate protec-
ton to this species. That Is why ex-
tinction finally came quickly. We did
our best to exterminate both old and
young, and we succeeded The explain
alton Is SO simple that all talk Of
mystery seems sadly out Of place
herf."