The pigeons had evolved to live in a few vast, nomadic flocks, - TopicsExpress



          

The pigeons had evolved to live in a few vast, nomadic flocks, which would migrate from forest to forest in search of ripening crops of seeds and nuts. Nowadays, its hard for us to comprehend just how huge these flocks were: the biggest ones were hundreds of miles long, and for an observer on the ground, theyd literally darken the sky for hours as they passed. ...... Soon after Europeans arrived in North America, they set to work clearing these forests and turning them into farmland. By 1872, half of the continents virgin forest cover had been cut down. Having a smaller pool of forest to subsist on destabilized the passenger pigeons populations. Deforestation was the first nail in the birds coffin. Next came hunting. Starting in the 19th century, passenger pigeons were professionally hunted, packed in barrels, and sold as a cheap protein source in cities.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 14:43:06 +0000

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