Passenger pigeon is an extinct bird that once was abundant in eastern North America. The last known passenger pigeon died in 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden. Its body is now in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
The male passenger pigeon grew about 161/2 inches (42 centimeters) long, with a long pointed tail; a short, black bill; and red eyes and feet. It had a gray-blue head and body. The feathers on the male’s neck and throat were wine-colored, with green and purple highlights. The female was similar but was smaller with duller colors.
Scientists estimate that as many as 3 billion to 5 billion passenger pigeons lived across eastern North America in the year 1500. They nested from the Atlantic Coast as far west as Montana. The birds got the name passenger pigeon because they traveled often to new places to look for food. They flew rapidly, sometimes in huge flocks. One flock in 1810 was calculated to have over 2 million birds, enough to block out the sun.
Passenger pigeons nested chiefly in forests of oak and beech, where they ate acorns, beechnuts, berries, and grains. Their enormous breeding colonies averaged 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) in area. Females laid only one egg on each nesting attempt.
The great number of passenger pigeons began to decline in the 1850’s. Many beech and oak forests were cut for use as fuel and lumber and to clear land for farms. As a result, much of the passenger pigeon’s habitat was destroyed. Hunters also killed millions of nesting passenger pigeons for food, and some even dynamited the bird’s colonies. People shipped barrels full of birds to the cities. These factors, combined with the bird’s low reproductive rate and inability to nest in small colonies, doomed the bird to extinction.
