Bob and Charles tackle one of the hardest subjects that Nature Guys has ever undertaken. In part 1 of Passenger Pigeon they go back in time to experience what this bird was like. Thanks to naturalists in the past we have first hand accounts of what this bird was like. Find out how humans managed to wipe out this bird.
For more information, we recommend these books:
- Wild New World The Epic Story of Animals and People in America by Dan Flores (Bob’s pick)
- Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh (Charles’s pick)
Here are books Charles read; the links are to a non-profit website (www.bookshop.org). If you buy these books through the links below it gives Charles’s blog credit which does him a lot of good!
- Silent Wings: A Memorial to the Passenger Pigeon (Edited by Wlater Edwin Scott)
- The Passenger Pigeon by Errol Fuller
- The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction by W.A. Schorger
- A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction By Joel Greenberg
Here are links to the relevant posts on Charles’s blog called Gulo in Nature:
Fascinating to learn more about the Passenger pigeon.
Life long resident of Northern Kentucky here and have read a lot about Martha at the Cincinnati Zoo. Often wondered what led to her being the last one.
Unbelievable the sheer number of hunters that were basically able to push it into extinction, in honestly not that large amount of time considering how long they were around before and how many there were even 40-50 years before they went extinct.
I think this is an important story to share especially with so many birds facing extinction in today’s world.
Thanks for this great story and resource of information.