This collection consists of 24 black-and-white photographs of captive passenger pigeons taken by J.G. Hubbard in Chicago in 1896. The pigeons were part of the collection belonging to Frank M. Chapman, former curator of ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The majority of the photographs were taken inside of a coop. The photographs show pigeons as chicks and adults, singly and in groups.

Once Numerous, Now Extinct

At the time the Europeans began exploring North America, ornithologists and historians estimate that there were 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons, constituting 25 to 40 percent of the total North American bird population. Each spring they migrated from the South to the Midwest, making a return journey in the fall, darkening the sky with their passing. A combination of their nesting habits, over hunting, and the clear cutting of forests caused their extinction. The last passenger pigeon, a captive bird named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden on September 1, 1914.

The Extinction of Passenger Pigeons

Hunting of passenger pigeons decreased their numbers, especially since they laid only one egg a year. However, it is widely accepted that the deforestation of the land played a leading role in their extinction. Passenger pigeons required large tracts of unbroken forest to support their flocks, colonies of even 5,000 birds could not survive. A boy in Ohio killed the last wild passenger pigeon in 1900 with BB gun. Hefty rewards for a confirmed passenger pigeon sighting went unclaimed. In 1947 Aldo Leopold spoke at the dedication of a monument to the last passenger pigeon in Wisconsin, erected at Wyalusing State Park.