Carrier Pigeons

Photo: Smithsonian Institute

In mid-July 1805, as the Corps of Discovery slowly worked their way around the great falls of the Missouri, Captain Lewis wrote in his journal, “I saw a number of turtledoves and some pigeons today. of the latter I shot one; they are the same common to the United States, or the wild pigeon as they are called.”

The pigeon he shot was most certainly a passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). At one time, it was believed to be the most populated bird in North America, numbering in the billions (some estimated between three and five billion). As settlers pressed westward in the 19th century, the birds were slaughtered by the millions each year and shipped by railcar for sale in city markets.

According to Paul A. Johnsgard in “Lewis and Clark on the Great Plains,” the passenger pigeon was last reported in the Montana region in 1875, from what is now South Dakota in 1884, and from North Dakota in 1892. The last wild birds observed anywhere were seen about 1900, and the last known passenger pigeon died in captivity in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden. The bird’s extinction was a sobering lesson for Americans and from it rose the country’s conservation movement.

This short video from the Smithsonian Channel shares the story of “Martha,” the final passenger pigeon: https://www.si.edu/object/yt_wx-cGnvKsvo