The Story of the Greatest Man-Made Extinction

Holocene Extinction Episode 1: The Passenger Pigeons

The passenger pigeon was arguably the most abundant wild bird on the planet, with a migrating flock capable of reaching billions of individuals. Despite their great number, the pigeons went extinct in a brief century, after being subjected to human activities of the European colony.
The passenger pigeons were killed in massive hunts, in a series of events that can be considered as one of the most destructive acts of predation towards a species. The seemingly endless wall of flying birds started to crumble in 1890 and the whole passenger pigeon population collapsed a decade after. The hundred-year-long genocidal hunts ultimately came to an end, as the most senseless and most colossal man-made extinction was written in history.

Sources:
[1] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/s...
[2] https://www.si.edu/spotlight/passenge...
[3] https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/p...
[4] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13249/...
[5] Schorger, A. W. (1955). The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
[6] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4071161?...
[7] https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
[8] https://www.aar.org/chronology-of-ame...
[9] Fuller, E. (2014). The Passenger Pigeon. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
[10] https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.o...
[11] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/time...

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