The Passenger Pigeon

Once, passenger pigeons blotted out the sun above North America. Their flocks stretched for miles, their wingbeats created thunder, their numbers so staggering they represented up to 40 percent of the continent's bird population. Then, in little more than fifty years, they were gone. Greenberg traces this annihilation with scientific precision and deep sorrow. The birds' ancient instinct to flock together, which had sustained the species for millennia, became their undoing as railroads, telegraph lines, and industrial hunting turned their gatherings into slaughter. The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. Despite inspiring Audubon, Thoreau, and Cooper, no one protected them. This is a haunting account of what we lost and why it matters now more than ever.