From a conversation I had on this with a naturalist for the Cook County Preserves (a real one, not a political payoff) 15 or so years ago and from a book I read on the Eastern Forest: At the turn to the 20th century, it has been estimated that 1 out of every 2 trees in the Eastern forest was a chestnut. The loss of that tree species and its heavy mast load was a contributing factor. Also the suppression of fire; with the suppression, brush grew up, making it difficult for the birds to access the mast on the forest floor. Before the suppression of fire, there were reports of tracking and hunting deer, with mile long sight lines.
Even if the pidgeons hadn't been hunted to extinction when they were, as an agrarian nation we never would have tolerated them in our fields. Betsy Rumely Denver, CO 80206 -----Original Message----- From: William H Kaempfer <[email protected]> To: cobirds <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 5:14 pm Subject: [cobirds] Passenger Pigeons There is no comparison between Passenger Pigeons and Eurasian Collared Doves. As late as the mid 1800s there were multiple billions of Passenger Pigeons. Alexander Wilson estimated seeing ONE FLOCK pass by his home in very early in the 1800s with 2,000,000,000 birds—ONE FLOCK! Of course it was over one mile wide and 240 miles long. Meanwhile the US had fewer than 25,000,000 people in 1850 so that would be 80 birds per person in that one flock. He further estimated that this flock would require about 17 million bushels of food per day! The primary natural food was nuts and acorns. That the Passenger Pigeon was exterminated by adverse competition with man is absolutely true—but it wasn’t hunted to death. During the 19th Century the eastern US was virtually deforested. This was bad news for the Passenger Pigeon. They were woodland birds and communal nesters—no trees, no nuts and acorns. But ever worse for the pigeons was the fact that they were communal (and fairly slow) breeders. Single trees could have triple-digit nests and the nesting areas were immense—scores of square miles in a single communal colony—and their breeding biology rather unusual. The pigeons could survive massive hunting pressure especially from a species that they probably outnumbered hundreds to one. What they could not overcome was the loss of vast contiguous forests for food and nesting habitat. Bill Kaempfer Boulder From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Miller Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:27 PM To: [email protected]; 'cobirds' Subject: [cobirds] Re: Eurasian-collared Doves Cecile – The way I heard it, the passenger Pigeons were shot out of existence by unregulated market hunters providing wild game for metropolitan restaurants. Bill Miller Fort Collins, CO From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of SUKE C LEE Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:45 PM To: cobirds Subject: [cobirds] Eurasian-collared Doves I was very excited when Brandon Percival showed us (the participants of a field trip) the Eurasian collared Dove in south-east Colorado many years ago. I was pretty pleased with myself (at that time) that I could tell it apart from the Mourning Dove... Then I started to realize that their numbers were increasing at an amazing rate. It made me think about the Passenger Pigeons who were present in mega-numbers before their extermination. I thought the ECOD's might just be filling the niche left empty by the Passenger Pigeons. Kind of puts a different perspective on this, doesn't it ? I wonder if the pigeons were disliked as much as the ECOD's and they were exterminated on purpose ? Anyone knows ? Cecile Lee Elbert --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
