On 1 September 1914, between midday and 1 pm, in the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Cincinnati, Ohio, a pigeon breathed her last, and with her died her species.
The pigeon was known as Martha, and the species was the Passenger Pigeon. Amongst all extinctions, this example remains unusual in two respects: the precision with which the timing is known and the overwhelming abundance of the species just a few decades earlier – for, just a few decades before Martha died, the Passenger Pigeon was the commonest bird on Earth.‘
Those are the first two paragraphs of my book on the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon.
I think of the Passenger Pigeon often, but always on this day of the year.
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September 1st. My birthday too. Born on the day the Nazis invaded Poland (1939) and exactly 25 years after the last Passenger Pigeon.
Makes me want to work for A) peace and B) conservation.
Good luck Mark with DGS and Wild Justice.
Nev – happy birthday! And thank you!
The extinction of a species, Martha stands as a monument to the cruelty, senselessness and killing for fun of the shooting industry.
When I think of the shooters for fun, I am reminded of the lines spoken in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “ you blocks, you stones, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome”.
If shooting was in part responsible for the initial declines of the Passenger Pigeon, it would have been the market gunners, supplying the demand for protein, not “killing for fun” sporting shooters.
Trapit- yes, I think you are right. And i reckon that habitat loss was a bigger factor anyway. But most extinctions have multiple causes.
The locust species mentioned in “A Message from Martha” cropped up in BBC’s gameshow Pointless today (10th Sept.). If it were not for the (massive) clues given I doubt that the contestants would have had a hope in getting the answer. At least it was mentioned that the species was now extinct.
Strange that along with Martha I often think of several other extinctions that we have directly caused with greed, stupidity or a lack of foresight. The Thylacine in Tasmania, Steller’s Sea Cow, the Labrador Duck, Rodrigues Solitaire, The Great Auk, the Moas of New Zealand and their presumed predator Haast’s Eagle. All gone for good along with many others.
“Greed, stupidity or a lack of foresight”.
I think that describes humankind very well.
I’ve avoided reading this book since I read Michael McCarthy’s The Moth Snowstorm. I thought that somehow the two were closely related. Having now read both I still think they are.
There’s a common message, if people listen carefully.
I don’t yet know how I’ll respond to “Silent Earth”.
Another Martha.
Appalacian Spring (a ballet for Martha)
Aaron Copland.
A different Martha, but a Martha nonetheless. The shaker melody was certainly from the mid 19thC.
Somehow the whole Appalacian Spring seems a little more melancholy.