Mesmerized by the beauty of the passenger pigeons, John James Audubon, a famous naturalist, once wrote, “I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, when a Hawk chanced to press upon the rear of a flock. At once, like a torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing upon each other towards the center. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent.”
About the Passenger Pigeon
The passenger pigeon was first discovered by French explorer Jacques Cartier during his voyage in Canada. This species of pigeon was native to North America. It was uniquely adapted for speed and maneuverability in flight; it had a small head and neck, a long tail, broad pointed wings, and large breast muscles that allowed it to travel great distances.
One of the most striking characteristics of the passenger pigeon was its sheer population size. At the time of European discovery in North America, there were an estimated 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons, accounting for 25 to 40 percent of the total bird population in the United States.
The Market Revolution and Passenger Pigeons
Nineteenth-century America was hit with the Market Revolution. Advances in technology resulted in more convenient transportation: people were able to travel faster and carry larger loads of cargo. As a result, self-sufficiency gave way to a burgeoning market economy. This market economy gave rise to the “market revolution”, where companies would produce excess amounts of products and sell them for profit.
With the rise of a market economy, hunting became a commercial enterprise, with the passenger pigeons epitomizing this notion. Pigeons were especially an attractive commodity due to their large population sizes, relatively low costs, and their demand as a food source. Thus, hunters opened a market for pigeons; they would stuff pigeons into barrels to be shipped off to distant cities.
This led to an endless cycle of hunting, as the passenger pigeon brought enormous amounts of profits to the hunting industry. In order to catch more pigeons, hunters baited pigeons with alcohol-soaked grain, and suffocated them with fires of grass or sulfur that were lit below trees”. To attract even more pigeons, captive pigeons, their eyes sewn shut, were set up as decoys on small perches called stools. Squabs were knocked from nests with long poles, trees were chopped down or were set on fire to make the squabs jump from nests.
Moreover, the large flocks of the passenger pigeon coupled with the sheer amount of hunters contributed to the rapid decline in the passenger pigeon population. The large size of passenger pigeon flocks made hunting easier and more profitable; hunters could kill hundreds of pigeons in a single sitting. Additionally, the lack of hunting regulations gave way for a plethora of hunters to exploit the passenger pigeon population. This mass hunting resulted in the rapid decline of the passenger pigeon population; less than a century later, people were no longer seeing passenger pigeon flocks in the wild.
The extinction of the passenger pigeon had significant ripple effects on the environment. Passenger pigeons played an important role in seed dispersal and maintaining forest health. Moreover, their rapid disappearance negatively affected predators and scavengers that relied on them for food, creating an ecological imbalance in the wildlife system.
While the Market Revolution was a keystone to industrializing the American economy, it is important that the negative reverberations are not obscured. Overall, the Market Revolution prioritized rampant economic growth and industrialization over conservation of the environment. This drive for economic expansion during the Market Revolution, exemplified by the extinction of the passenger pigeon, underscores the broader pattern of environmental neglect that accompanied America's rapid industrialization.
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