A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction by

66 Book Review >>> Taylor Bailey A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction

Greenberg, Joel. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014. 290 pp.

Published on the one-hundred-year anniversary of the death of Martha—the last passenger pigeon who died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914—A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction by naturalist Joel Greenberg is a poignant memorial. Greenberg’s detailed historical analysis provides readers with a comprehensive account of the events leading up to the disappearance of the magnificent bird, whose flocks numbered in the range of three to five billion birds pre-European colonization. A Feathered River Across the Sky tells a cautionary tale, providing us with critical historical knowledge to inform the current extinction crisis. The passenger pigeon—although it resembled a common mourning dove—is unlike any North American bird alive today in both appearance and behavior. Passenger pigeons ranged from fifteen to eighteen inches in length, approximately “one and a half times the size of the [mourning] dove” (2). Males possessed “slaty-blue and gray upper parts and a throat and breast of rich copper glazed with purple,” whereas in the drabber females beige replaced copper, most likely as a means of camouflage (2). Perhaps most distinct, however, were the massive flocks passenger pigeons congregated in to migrate. Following known food source locations, massive flocks of millions of birds would traverse eastern North America, stopping only to feed or roost. The naturalist and painter John James Audubon famously recorded a passenger pigeon flight along the Ohio River that was said to have “eclipsed the sun for three days” (1). In the spring, passenger pigeons nested as a flock for a period of four to five weeks. The density of birds at nesting sites was so great that “their sheer volume imposed severe damage on the trees that supported them.” (13). One account from Indiana recalls the “nightly crash of breaking limbs from a pigeon roost in a nearby maple grove” (13). Some nesting sites were so large that the noise of the birds could be heard six miles away, while the stench of pigeon dung—which “permeated the atmosphere with the scents reminiscent of a poultry farm”—drifted for over a mile (13). Not only did these great nestings impact the ecosystems of eastern North America, they represented a striking phenomena within the North American ecological consciousness. Passenger pigeon nesting behavior, which clearly evolved as defense mechanism, also made the birds incredibly easy to catch. The historical accounts, which Greenberg deftly weaves together, tell a tragic tale. Passenger pigeons were caught and slaughtered for food in a variety of ways, often in a systematic and inhumane fashion. The memoir of George D. Smith—a resident of Auglaize County, Ohio—recollects one particular night in which the Smith family came upon a pigeon roost in a marsh near their home. Upon finding a strand of

willow trees filled with pigeons, the Smiths surrounded a tree, blinded the birds with their lanterns, and clubbed a number of birds to death; in just a few minutes, the Smiths netted 114 birds (126). As killing methods improved, pigeon meat became a profitable commodity. When this seemingly inexhaustible food source began to be sold on the market, Greenberg posits that this “new situation intensified the plundering of pigeons and ensured their extinction” (79). No longer a provisional food source for many white Americans, passenger pigeon meat was sold on national markets with the aid of railroad transportation as an economical alternative to farm raised meat. Contrary to contemporary belief, however, the passenger pigeon was not a limitless resource, and by the mid-nineteenth century populations began to dwindle. As naturally protective woodland habitat was cleared for farming and development, passenger pigeons found it more difficult to nest. The last great nestings of the 1870s did not indicate some miraculous rebound in passenger pigeon populations; rather, the uptick was representative of smaller surviving populations of pigeons concentrating around remaining food sources (130). Passenger pigeon populations had long been constrained by natural forces (adverse weather, predatory species, food availability), but nothing could have prepared the birds for the systematic slaughter brought upon by American settlers. By the 1890s, it is estimated that only a few thousand passenger pigeons existed in the wild. One of the greatest obstacles to passenger pigeon research (or to the research of any extinct species, for that matter) is the lack of tangible evidence. For all the passenger pigeons slaughtered in North America, few photographs exist depicting the birds in their natural environment, and the majority of photographs that do exist depict already-dead birds. Despite such challenges, Joel Greenberg skillfully spins historical accounts and known evidence into a haunting narrative with a message needed now more than ever. Greenberg’s historical documentation is extensive, which may be a bit onerous for the casual reader. However, casual readers and invested scholars alike will appreciate Greenberg’s attention to detail and thorough analysis. Presently, human-caused environmental exploitation is rapidly amounting to what many scientists have labeled a ‘sixth mass extinction,’ capable of decimating significant numbers of amphibian, reptile, mammal, fish, and bird species. We are no longer faced with the extinction of singular species like the case of the passenger pigeon; entire ecosystems are at the risk when so many key species are eliminated. Joel Greenberg’s A Feathered River Across the Sky makes clear the tragedy of extinction events: the extraordinary ecological phenomena that was the North American passenger pigeon has been forever erased from human consciousness. Never again will a simple glance upward in eastern North America reveal a magnificent, thundering, ‘feathered river.’ The death of Martha—the last passenger pigeon— in 1914 was final, marking the certain extinction of a species that once compromised 25 to 40 percent of North American bird life before Europeans arrived on the continent (1). The passenger pigeon story is a testament to Greenberg’s assertion that it is within our means to ensure that such an atrocity is never repeated again.