Joel Greenberg remembers the passenger piegon and wishes he downed a couple with some wine

Polly Cracker
   The death of all passenger Pigeons is told but Joel Greenberg in his book called "A Feathered River Across the Sky" and he explains how quickly this bird disappeared from the skies of north America. the huge nesting roosts from these birds reached in the millions by 1860 and this bird was exterminated for a cheap easy food source for so many in America. Pigeon was considered a delicacy for many in this country and mass killings of pigeons took its toll that eventually by 1900 the bird couldn't be found anywhere. The most disruptive aspect that really lead to the downfall of this wonderful bird species were hunters and trappers consistently disturbing the ingrained courting process where many birds quit nesting egg-laying altogether. This process really doomed the passenger pigeon as future waves of birds would not be hatched ...nor killed for human consumption. Greenberg gives the low-lights and mentions many of the infamous bird hunters of the era an d a common total of five hundred birds felled by a single individual hunter was not uncommon. Greenberg is sad by the demise of this bird but upon looking at him its easy to conclude that  he looks like a dude who would of gladly devoured many for one meal. greenie goes into great detail of how past accounts of the ease and fun the gun addicts had in bringing down so many birds upon the luck of stumbling onto a massive migration that extended for miles and was louder than a tornado. is chapter in profiles in killing is chilling for a bird to read like me and clearly if the American greedy settler were expanding in Australia many parrots and parakeets would no longer be around. In the end though so many bastards were disturbing the breeding grounds that like a panda it became difficult for tis species to come back from the mass hunting. Scientists had no success breeding this bird in captivity as well. I would of liked to see Greenberg write more about the exporting of pigeon as food sources and why the hard work ethic of easy hunting and food contrasts to the difficulties and hardship of early pioneers as an image often put out by historians and teachers. The hardship was experienced from the wildlife and not people.