Yesterday in the museum we learned a lot more about Passenger Pigeons. At one time, there were 5 billion of them in North America. Now they are extinct. This is a stuffed pigeon in the museum, where it tells how these birds were hunted and shipped down south for food. They were so plentiful, one dozen could be had for a penny! There was an invoice from a company specializing in hunting and shipping these birds about 130 years ago that listed how many birds were shipped that one season alone--1.1 million. Now, all we have are stuffed ones and pictures of them to remind us what these pigeons looked like. Very interesting and thought provoking exhibit.
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I know the last passenger pigeon was taken and stuffed and is on display at a museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. I assume this must be it or another like it on display in some other museum.
Not to be outdone, our government condoned the slaughter of 6 million bison. They considered that to be the Indian's grocery store and if they could slaughter them all then they could get the Indians to move onto reservations where the government would feed them beef.
The last passenger pigeon, "Martha", was in a zoo when she died. This isn't "Martha" but a distant cousin, but the exhibit did give information about her.
Sometimes it seems that we are not very smart people!
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