The Manitoba Museum: Exhibit: Remembering the Passenger Pigeon 100 years later

September 1st of 2014 marked the grim anniversary of the death and extinction of the last passenger pigeon on Earth. It’s extinction is probably the only one for which an exact hour of demise is recorded; the last individual was a captive bird, named Martha, that expired at 2pm local time at the Cincinatti Zoo. The last passenger pigeon in Canada was collected near Winnipegosis in Manitoba in 1898.

The disappearance of this species is almost impossible to comprehend, as it was once the most common and popular birds in North America, perhaps even the world, with population estimates of between 3 and 5 billion birds.

The awe-inspiring flocks that were described as darkening the sky from horizon to horizon, and the massive breeding colonies that numbered in the tens of millions were slaughtered by market hunters and shamefully wasted by hungry locals alike. Unfettered exploitation along with changes in environment due to deforestation resulted in the shocking disappearance of passenger pigeons from the wild by about 1900.

The Passenger Pigeon: 100 Years of Mourning is free with admission and is on exhibit from November 1, 2014 to April 12, 2015.

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