Four extinct North American birds, in ascending order of ATL save-ability. The first two are in the pre-1900 forum.
4) The Carolina Parakeet. God I love this bird. What a stupid, stupid waste!
Ahem. Birder moment there. Sorry.
Ah... the Carolina Parakeet. A small blue and green parrot, fond of eating seeds and cockleburrs. Once found all over east and central North America, as far north as Wisconsin and southern New England (yes, really) and as far west as Nebraska and Oklahoma, it was the only parrot species fully adapted to a temperate zone. A flock was seen frolicking in fresh snow outside Albany in the 1820s, and there are unconfirmed reports of sightings as far north as the Dakotas and Maine.
It was a quintessentially American bird, found over a large part of the US but /only/ in the US. Like _Homo Sapiens_, it was a bright, adaptable tropical species that, under the impetus of the ice ages, successfully shifted to living in the temperate zones. Apes and parrots are tropical beasts; only one ape species can tolerate cold winters, and there was only one parrot species that learned to do the same. Somehow I feel we should have taken better care of it because of that.
Anyway. When you ask a person to name an extinct bird, you almost always get the same response: the dodo. The dodo was ugly, clumsy, stupid, and found only on a handful of islands. Yet it's become the model for bird extinction somehow.
The Carolina Parakeet was handsome, graceful, friendly and intelligent, and spread over a dozen American states. And it's almost completely forgotten today.
Yet it was part of American history. All the early explorers mention "flocks of squawking parrots", and Jefferson had a cage of them at the White House. But not one American in a hundred is aware that there ever was such a bird. Even its official name robs it of its proper place, as if it lived in two smallish states instead of ranging from Florida to Minnesota.
Last one died in captivity in 1914, though unconfirmed sightings went on into the '30s.
Why it went extinct: It was widely but thinly spread. Another communal nester and breeder, though not as bad as the passenger. And tasty -- there are lots of 19th century recipes for parakeet pie.
It also seems to have been painfully vulnerable to human predation. Ecologically naive, the parakeets would flock to aid a wounded member. This means that a hunter could shoot one, then just sit and wait... the entire flock would show up, circling and squawking and even landing on the ground, and a hunter could bag the lot.
Also, it was a popular pet. Hunters would cheerfully kill a hundred to get one for sale.
How to save it: Dammit, it should have been saved... ah, sorry. But this one isn't so hard. Just _one_ good captive breeding program. The bird was semimigratory, but it shouldn't have been that hard to devise a conservation program.
Knock-on effects: Imagine looking out your window and seeing little blue parrots fluttering around in your yard, searching under the autumn leaves for seeds and nuts... without having to take any drugs first. What more do you want, egg in your beer?
Okay, ecologically, the CP seems to have enjoyed snacking on burrs and other weeds; it'd probably have some modest impact on plant pests.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
4) The Carolina Parakeet. God I love this bird. What a stupid, stupid waste!
Ahem. Birder moment there. Sorry.
Ah... the Carolina Parakeet. A small blue and green parrot, fond of eating seeds and cockleburrs. Once found all over east and central North America, as far north as Wisconsin and southern New England (yes, really) and as far west as Nebraska and Oklahoma, it was the only parrot species fully adapted to a temperate zone. A flock was seen frolicking in fresh snow outside Albany in the 1820s, and there are unconfirmed reports of sightings as far north as the Dakotas and Maine.
It was a quintessentially American bird, found over a large part of the US but /only/ in the US. Like _Homo Sapiens_, it was a bright, adaptable tropical species that, under the impetus of the ice ages, successfully shifted to living in the temperate zones. Apes and parrots are tropical beasts; only one ape species can tolerate cold winters, and there was only one parrot species that learned to do the same. Somehow I feel we should have taken better care of it because of that.
Anyway. When you ask a person to name an extinct bird, you almost always get the same response: the dodo. The dodo was ugly, clumsy, stupid, and found only on a handful of islands. Yet it's become the model for bird extinction somehow.
The Carolina Parakeet was handsome, graceful, friendly and intelligent, and spread over a dozen American states. And it's almost completely forgotten today.
Yet it was part of American history. All the early explorers mention "flocks of squawking parrots", and Jefferson had a cage of them at the White House. But not one American in a hundred is aware that there ever was such a bird. Even its official name robs it of its proper place, as if it lived in two smallish states instead of ranging from Florida to Minnesota.
Last one died in captivity in 1914, though unconfirmed sightings went on into the '30s.
Why it went extinct: It was widely but thinly spread. Another communal nester and breeder, though not as bad as the passenger. And tasty -- there are lots of 19th century recipes for parakeet pie.
It also seems to have been painfully vulnerable to human predation. Ecologically naive, the parakeets would flock to aid a wounded member. This means that a hunter could shoot one, then just sit and wait... the entire flock would show up, circling and squawking and even landing on the ground, and a hunter could bag the lot.
Also, it was a popular pet. Hunters would cheerfully kill a hundred to get one for sale.
How to save it: Dammit, it should have been saved... ah, sorry. But this one isn't so hard. Just _one_ good captive breeding program. The bird was semimigratory, but it shouldn't have been that hard to devise a conservation program.
Knock-on effects: Imagine looking out your window and seeing little blue parrots fluttering around in your yard, searching under the autumn leaves for seeds and nuts... without having to take any drugs first. What more do you want, egg in your beer?
Okay, ecologically, the CP seems to have enjoyed snacking on burrs and other weeds; it'd probably have some modest impact on plant pests.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
