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Animal Profiles

Animal Profile #1

Passenger Pigeon

The 'Passenger Pigeon' or sometimes called the 'Wild Pigeon' is a small and extinct species of pigeon that inhabitated North America in both the USA and Canada. The animal gets its name from its notorious migrations every year. These migrations were in flocks that could reach into the billions, and often darkened the skies in migration routes for them. Unfortunately for the birds, these sun-blocking flocks annoyed the people of America, and eventually hunting Passenger Pigeons during their migration was very common in the 1800s. There are reports and photographs of only one or a couple people with hundreds of birds laying dead, with one report stating someone pointed and fired a shotgun into the sky with 128 birds dropping dead. Unfortunately the Passenger Pigeon would go completely extinct in the wild in the early 1900s, there are conflicting reports of when the very last individual was reported, although the last confirmed report of a wild specimen was on March 12th, 1901, the animal was shot, stuffed and then placed in a private university. However there was a potential specimen that was later destroyed being shot on April 3rd, 1902. With the Passenger Pigeon being an extremely rare and soon to be extinct animal, many captive specimens were used exploitatively. Unfortunately, the species would go completely extinct in 1914.