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| Sunday, 9 October 2005 |
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Different outlook
Bygone passengers of North America by Arefa Tehsin
1914, a year unforgettable in the history of mankind when it saw the commencement of the First World War. There was yet another abysmal event that went unnoticed in the same year that is the extinction, or better, the despicable extermination of the largest number of birds found on the face of earth - the Passenger Pigeons. Neither a comet had struck nor there was an ice age which paved way for this unthinkable event of the wiping away of the largest number of birds in a span as short as 50 years, but it was yet another enormously deplorable deed of homosapiens. Consisting of around 40 per cent of the bird population of North America, these birds were so great in number and so widely spread that even the thought of its extinction would have seemed highly ridiculous and impossible at that time. Swift flyers They were strong and swift flyers who could travel 1600 km in a day and fly up to the speed of 96 km per hour. Their great migrations were attributed to their feeding and breeding habits. According to the book "Vanished Species" by David Day, Chief Pokagon, an American Indian considered the last Pottawottomic chief of the Pokagon band described their nesting habits (as recorded by Massachusetts State Ornithologist, E. Forbush in 1917) when he was camping on Manistee River in Michigan in May 1950. He heard a sound as if 'army of horses laden with sleigh bells' was advancing. On listening more intently he took it to be a distant thunder but the morning was clear. And then he beheld 'an unbroken front of millions of pigeons passing like clouds from branches of high trees'. He realised they were mating, preparatory to nesting and observed them closely. The trees were filled with them sitting in pairs in convenient crotches of limbs and the bell like wooing notes he had mistaken for ringing of bells in distance. On the 3rd day the chattering stopped and nests were built. On 4th day, the eggs were laid. The male and the female took turns going to feed. On the morning of 11th day parent birds left the young to shift for themselves. Parents stuffed them with mast and other such material they themselves ate. Within two days after the stuffing they became masses of fat 'squabs' and parents would drive them away from their nests to take care of themselves. They also took care of the squabs whose parents were missing. The female would lay one egg during the nesting. He estimated their life to be 25 yrs. Breeding ground While visiting their breeding grounds in Kentucky in 1806, the noted American ornithologist Alexander Wilson calculated the number of birds to be 2,23,02,72,000. That particular breeding ground was around 64 km long and several km wide. It was scattered with masses of eggs, squab chicks, branches of trees and dung. James Audubon, a famous ornithologist and illustrator of his times also visited the roosting and nesting sites. He mistook the deep white of the dung on the forest floor for snow in the first instance. He wrote there was an unbelievable confusion and uproar when the flock returned and their landing sound was like thunder. When Audubon was traveling in the autumn of 1813 on his wagon from his home on the Ohio river to Louisville, Kentucky, when a flock of Passenger pigeons passed over him so the 'light of the noonday sun was obscured as by an eclipse'. On reaching Louisville at sunset the thick column was still passing over him. For another 3 days other flocks followed the first one. He calculated that a flock 1 mile wide, passing for 3 hrs a mile per minute would consist of around 1,01,50,36,000 birds. The enormity of numbers in which these gentle doves were found was equal to its demand in human societies. Their squabs were used as delicacies, their feathers for pillows, their dung, blood, and gizzards for medicines, dead adults as cheap meat and live ones for trapshooting for the 'gentlemen' in sports. A single merchant in New York was reported to sell around 18,000 pigeons a day! A shooting club could bring in 50,000 a week! For thousands it had become a full time occupation after 1860s. The nesting grounds started turning into graveyards. 'Stool Birds' with their legs tied and eyes sewn started coming widely into use as baits in nets. As human race walked towards more advancement, telegraph lines started coming widely into use. This in turn facilitated the work of hunters. Near Petoskey in Michigan in 1878, hunters attacked a nesting ground and destroyed 1000 million birds! Extinction In April 1896 telegraph lines started informing hunters everywhere about the last huge flock that was left of 2,50,000 pigeons, which had gathered for nesting. It was near Mammoth Cave in the forest of Green river outside Bowling Green, Ohio. The railways started pouring in the hunters from near and far away places to give form to yet another stupendously horrifying act. Out of the 2,50,000 pigeons only around 5000 escaped. 2,00,000 were killed, 40,000 mutilated ones were left there as thrash and 1,00,000 chicks not yet in the squab state were destroyed as they were of no use. But the most appalling result was that due to derailment in shipping line, the carcasses had to be dumped in a deep ravine as they had started rotting in the staunch April sun. Last Passenger Pigeon seen in the wild was shot by a boy on March 24, 1900 in Pike county, Ohio. On September 1, 1914 when the ignoble clouds of war were casting deep shadows all over the world and the booming of guns was echoing in Europe, perhaps a small news item in the newspapers went by unheeded in a cursory glance. The last Passenger Pigeon 'Martha', aged 29 years, bred in captivity had died in Cincinnati zoo. These gentle doves vanished from this planet silently, without any complain. |
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