In the mid 1800s, countless millons of Passenger Pigeons flew
in hundreds of mile-wide flocks typically 300 miles long, and so dense they darkened the sky
for days as they passed overhead continuously. Multitudes were destroyed by incessant shooting
for food but this was only a minute number of the total.
Who could have dreamed that within a few decades this, the most numerous bird on Earth, would
be gone forever? The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died in a zoo in 1914. A poignant
example of what happens when the interests of man clash with the interests of nature.
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