Pennsylvania Game News - August 2014 - 6

foods would present problems for
everything from air traffic to wildlife
communities. Their time had surely
passed.
But it's important that we look back
occasionally to remind ourselves of what
once was and how that incredible resource
was lost. Regardless of how you look at
this species' road to extinction, you can't
help but to cringe at how callously and
indiscriminately they were taken, and
wasted. Squabs were popped out of nests
with long poles. Nest trees were burned or
chopped down. Nets were used to catch
them by the thousands. Hogs were turned
loose to feed on squabs. Wagonloads were
lost to spoilage. It was shameful behavior.
Unethical and borderline criminal. But
back then, acceptable.
It's hard to look back and envision
the slaughter of buffalo on the plains for

their tongues and robes; the killing of
countless nesting egrets and herons for
their fashionable plumes; and, of course,
the extermination of passenger pigeons.
But these crimes against nature would
eventually help shape our conservation
ethic into what it is today, and lead to
overlapping wildlife protection on a state,
national and international level. They
were hard lessons. But wildlife conservation ultimately has grown from them.
To learn more about passenger
pigeons and the coming centennial,
visit Project Passenger Pigeon at
www.passengerpigeon.org. For more
information on passenger pigeons
in Pennsylvania, visit the Game
Commission's website and go to the
Endangered Species Section. Consult
A. W. Schorger's The Passenger Pigeon
for more detailed information.

Passenger Pigeon Profile
The last reports of living passenger
pigeons in Pennsylvania were in 1906.
A large dove, passenger pigeons were
about 16 inches long, with a 2-foot
wingspan; the head was slate blue with
a black beak and red eyes; crimson feet;
12 tail feathers; gray to blue upper side;
sides and back of neck, metallic golden
violet; reddish-brown from throat to
belly and a white belly. Females were
smaller than males. The birds weighed
9 to 12 ounces, two to three times the
size of a mourning dove.
Passenger pigeons were once an
abundant nester in our state. Their
North American population numbered
as many as 5 billion birds when colonists arrived and comprised 25 to 40
percent of America's total wild-bird
population. They captivated early resi6

dents with their spring and fall migrations. They ranged over eastern North
America from the Hudson Bay south
to the Gulf of Mexico, and west into
the Mississippi River valley in mixed
hardwood forests. Hunters and market hunters alike pursued them with
reckless abandon. Passenger pigeons,
also called "wild pigeons," migrated
into and through Pennsylvania beginning in March; they went south in
September and October. Fast fliers,
they could reach speeds in excess of
60 mph. They foraged for and favored
beechnuts, acorns and American chestnuts, but also consumed cherries, wild
grapes, dogwood berries, earthworms,
grasshoppers and many other items.
They roosted nightly and left roosts en
masse swiftly in early morning. They
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Pennsylvania Game News - August 2014

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