by Joel Greenberg
Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2014
The northward creep of red oaks is no secret. On late autumn days, their enduring crimson seems to drive with us up I-91. We could point to climate change, or perhaps thank forgetful blue jays. But the biggest reason may be passenger pigeons. Yes, the extinct ones. Just over a century ago, they bested deer as acorn gluttons. The birds’ extinction means there are infinitely more acorns available today, which raises the possibility that passenger pigeons changed the entire character of the Eastern deciduous forests they once called home.
A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction describes the disappearance of billions of birds in a mere 50 years. In this centennial of their extinction (the last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914) we can be thankful a fourth-grade fascination with the passenger pigeon still animates author Joel Greenberg, a research associate at the Field Museum and Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago. His book is not a lamentation for the lost, but rather a complementary resource to Project Passenger Pigeon, a nationwide centenary initiative to raise awareness about extinction, explore connections with nature, and inspire us all to work toward a sustainable and diverse future.
The book engages readers with the incomparable life history of Ectopistes migratorious, a species also known as “the wanderer.” No common carrier pigeon, the passenger pigeon was a long-distance traveler. It was a substantial bird, described by Greenberg as “a mourning dove on steroids,” and it was also at one time the most abundant bird species in North America – by some estimates accounting for 20 to 40 percent of all birds. In the early 1800s, ornithologist Alexander Wilson observed a single flock, which he estimated at 2.3 billion passenger pigeons, that blacked out the sky and took three days to pass overhead.
The Native Americans knew it first; behind the deer and the turkey, this forest fowl was a far greater component of Native sustenance and spiritual practice than we typically realize. The passenger pigeon would also nourish three centuries of non-native settlers, who flocked to the continent. It wasn’t just a dish for the frontier, but also a delicacy in cities.
Greenberg also tells, as he must, how significant the difference between use and abuse can be. The pigeons’ million-fold nesting flocks had their own vulnerabilities – their collective weight was enough to collapse whole trees and destroy every promise of their single-egg nests. But it was man who brought about their ultimate demise, eating them by the millions and shooting them for sport – taking the passenger pigeon population from billions to zero in less than five decades.
While we all know the fateful story ends in the death of the species, Greenberg also tells of those who tried to stop the slaughter. Drawing on meticulous research that spans colonial travel sketches and nineteenth century news clippings to novels and peer-reviewed science, Greenberg reveals what can happen when the weaknesses of man and bird collide. But in our common loss, he finds the passenger pigeon a vital link to teach us the lessons we may need to restore ourselves and those now prone to the pigeon’s plight, such as the bluefin tuna.
There has never been a better time than this year to acknowledge the passenger pigeon and act where before we did not. These 207 pages are not for the sentimentalists, the sportsmen, or the scientists alone, but for the human in us all. The words build a desire in the reader to be among those Greenberg dedicates his book to: “to those who recorded what they saw; to those who collected the words; and to those whose love of beauty and life strive to make this story less likely to be repeated.”