What Caused the Mass Extinction of Billions of Passenger Pigeons?

[@newbie4789]

Well, I have seen many people crying over Dodo extinction. And well, that really was a painful incident, I never have felt more disturbed than hearing the story of passenger pigeon

[@cedriceric9730]

Yeah , same

[@snowmiaow]

An excellent demonstration of human greed

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

people know of the Dodo but are oblivious of all the other birds who went extinct alongside the Dodo on Mauritius. Ever heard of the Great Auk? It's a flightless bird, somewhat similar to a penguin, that lived on an Island in the Atlantic. Went extinct in the mid 18 hundreds

[@bussinblaney3951]

@@maythesciencebewithyou yeah the great auk would've been cool to see

[@johnj3281]

​@@bussinblaney3951any pics or drawings?

[@gvet47]

One of the papers I wrote in school was on the passeger pigeon. This was back in the late 1950s. It does not seem like we learned much about what humans do to drive animals to extinction since.

[@J242D]

We know now, the lessons are just ignored in favor of making a profit. Truly sickening

[@TommoCarroll]

This is like in the Americas when settlers were amazed by how much salmon there was and I think they even wrote somewhere that it would be impossible to overfish! 🎣 Anyone else heard of that or something similar elsewhere in the world?

[@crackedemerald4930]

Aspect Science "ph! We'll never run out of bisons!"

[@TommoCarroll]

Shockwave Shockwave ah yes! The old classic ‘infinite bison’ mistake. Can’t blame them, who would have thought bisons _weren’t_ infinite!?

[@stephendekoning5689]

Shockwave shockwave, maybe passenger pigeons and salmon were being killed off same way bisons were.. on purpose, found funded by government, to kill off and enslave the native and incoming peoples, why else replace them with obvious harder to care for creatures that still promoted as great, but you gotta know and have all these resources to keep decent.

[@tytyty784]

cod on the grand banks, buffalo on the plains

[@everybodysproblems]

sea cows!

[@ВаляВълова]

@2:05 "They [humans] even burned SULFUR below pigeon nests to suffocate them [the pigeons], collecting the bodies as they fell from the trees" is the quote that gave me goosebumps

[@AKumar528]

Human cruelty puts any animals to shame. We need to be much more non violent

[@Bynggo]

@@AKumar528 Non violent is something quite foreign to human nature. Let’s not forget the demise of the last black rhino, killed by an American ‘hunter’. What a medal of honour for that idiot. A wonderful tale to tell his great grandchildren as they are eating GM wheat because all the fish are gone, all the meat produced is contaminated….They have killed off all the animals in captivity for sport too. Think I’m over reacting? It actually only took white man to bring the bison to near extinction. Thirty years of concentrated effort to wipe out the passenger pigeon, they used to blacken the skies for days, they were so prolific.

[@carlraffen6543]

@@AKumar528 it's not violence, it's greed.

[@DakotaofRaptors]

@@carlraffen6543 I know you were trying to be deep there, but yeah this is violence.

[@Lanteader]

@@DakotaofRaptors That violence is caused by greed.

[@TheActionBastard]

"Ha! That'll never happen" is always the phrase uttered just before that thing happens.

[@doomerbob5731]

I wish these birds were alive today. They're so beautiful 🥺

[@pinstripecool34]

Same :(

[@Archangel125]

In 50 years Scishow will release a similar video about where all the fish went.

[@LuisAldamiz]

Sad but maybe true.

[@fattyfat-fat6639]

Don't U mean.........Humans!!!

[@rabidheartbeats5953]

fish are farmed these days but yeah i doubt it would be enough

[@chevychase3103]

I don't think you will have to hold your breath for 50 years it will be much sooner!

[@theusison1757]

Not funny

[@grimmb3686]

Personally, I think that passenger pidgeons would fully fit into today’s ecosystems. I fully support the researchers attempting to clone them.

[@safron2442]

Same. I support the cloning of recently extinct animals such as the Passenger Pigeon, Dodo(They filled an important niche on Mauritius), The Thylacine(I still think it could be alive tbh), and the Wooly Mammoth(Not going into why, as there are plenty of articles on it already.)

[@combez324]

The biggest thing currently stopping us from cloning these extinct animals is procedures to gather viable DNA. Once we develop a method that can reliably extract viable DNA from organisms that have been dead for a century or so, we'll be able to clone the pigeon

[@Joenah.]

Wouldn't it be so cool to have pigeon overcast and rain? :)

[@clydebixby4746]

Quaglium Quagnarr where can you donate?

[@Q_QQ_Q]

humans didnt kill passenger pidgeons white people did . others arent responsible for your crimes .

[@BillyThePassengerPigeon]

No Im not dead I have a wife and 3 kids

[@seanlorenz-ck9nm]

my dumbass brain cant stop laughing from this comment

[@VOMITQUEEN]

This comment should’ve gotten more likes 😭💀

[@chickbowdrie4750]

You're a national treasure, Billy

[@OrdinaryAicovers]

Your funny man 😂

[@Lala_is_here517]

“If U sEe ThIs BiRd Ur DaY iS rUiNeD!! 🥰”

[@expertexcavatinginc]

RIP Pigeon. Lost their species to help us humans create laws against stupidity such as overhunting. ❤🐥

[@4gegtyreeyuyeddffvyt]

Expert Excavating I kick you’re ducking ass !!!!

[@expertexcavatinginc]

Colorful Snacks what? You're mixing issues here. No one is comparing the plight of the human race to pigeon struggles. Step back and listen. Absorb. Then comment. Sheesh.

[@Q_QQ_Q]

humans didnt kill passenger pidgeons white people did . others arent responsible for your crimes .

[@expertexcavatinginc]

Groot Official bad troll attempt is bad

[@toyalee6956]

Expert Excavating Today I saw a pigeon me and my sister were outside and saw this pigeon with orange faithed fur and grey wings with black dotes I saw it with my eye I even took a picture but i did not do the picture good:/ so they might be alive still I think!!!

[@mimimarcus]

Wasn't there a research paper suggesting that they went extinct because their population dipped below critical level needed for mating and young-rearing behavior? This also explained why captive passenger pigeons refused to breed and conservation efforts failed.

[@annak804]

Why did a zoo not have a full sized flock it was quite possible

[@brassbuckles]

The video mentions predator satiation, but he mentions it in regards to the adults. In reality, predator satiation was the means by which their offspring survived. The chicks would be left on the ground so predators would eat as many as they could. Surviving chicks had a better chance of reaching adulthood. But this would take a huge flock. You can imagine the number of baby pigeons it would take to feed every predator in the woods, and perhaps there had to be a certain amount of them to help keep one another warm as well, even if the adults brooded the young. That's why they had to have a certain size flock to breed, and why it probably wouldn't be feasible to return them from extinction.

[@brassbuckles]

@@annak804 A full-sized flock of passenger pigeons could be larger than the state of California, and produced enough offspring that the predators could eat all the chicks they wanted and still leave plenty alive to sustain the size of the flock. It's possible that without such large numbers the animals would refuse to breed, but it's also possible that even if they did, the chicks wouldn't survive due to being just dropped on the ground in the cold and left to be eaten by predators.

[@annak804]

@@brassbuckles a zoo could have had a good sized flock of several hundred individuals instead they had only a few individuals yes they could have done better. they just thought they didn't have to because they never thought the birds could go extinct.

[@infinitecanadian]

I have read a book written in the early 20th Century that called for hunting birds like crows down if their species was of no use to Man. What wonderful attitudes they had back then regarding the natural world.

[@beckyshell4649]

Back then people lived with nature more than we do today. Living closely with nature you experience both the good and bad aspects of people and animal interactions. Most birds unless used for food would be a pest because they ate crops. Predators would kill livestock and more "useful wildlife".It is easier to have warm thoughts about a wolf if it isn't killing your sheep. I am not so sure we have come too far with our attitudes about the wildlife though . Many animal habitats have been lost because of economic development. Rainforest cut for wood, forest cut for farmland, then farmland developed for housing and industry

[@infinitecanadian]

@@beckyshell4649 What I think of is that instead of considering what the environment can do for you, ask yourself what you can do for the environment.

[@beckyshell4649]

@@infinitecanadian If everyone thought like that problem solved.

[@novaangle2183]

@@beckyshell4649 I lived in the woods and forests now and I can tell you, peoples attitudes towards animals back then came from ignorance, fear, and plain old anger. It took forever for people to even consider wildlife as something more than a thing. They were disgusting. People still treat animals as if they don't have pain or even lives of their own so we really haven't grown much.

[@J242D]

@@beckyshell4649 they didn’t give a damn about nature, the things you’re describing come from a place of agriculture and making money, not about the balance of the ecosystem

[@GaH.Hassan]

Just saw a plaque about this at the field museum today! Apparently like 3 dozen species of bird have gone extinct in north america in just the last 200 years

[@SpiderkillersInc]

Which ones?

[@ehoffman2006]

@@SpiderkillersInc Great Auk, Eskimo Curlew, Slender-billed Curlew, Labrador Duck, Heath Hen, Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Seaside Sparrow, Bachman's Warbler, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Imperial Woodpecker

[@novaangle2183]

Ah there still are many going extinct now...

[@annak804]

Yeah and all because of humans

[@seeker296]

you could probably find 3 dozen bird species in north america that have gone extinct in the last 40 years.

[@EvelynDayless]

Don't worry people assuming nature is just too big for us to affect negatively will never bite us in the ass again.

[@gamesman0118]

Munashiimaru Have you seen our President?

[@MrWombatty]

Gamesman01; never heard of sarcasm!

[@gamesman0118]

MrWombatty Yes I use it quite a lot. For instance my earlier comment.

[@vulcanfeline]

you really need to say /sarcasm off, as there's Always someone who'll take a comment literally :)

[@gamesman0118]

vulcanfeline Too true. I liked what Peanut used to do. (Waves hand high above head and makes rushing noise) Hey buddy that was the joke flying over your head.

[@Patrick.Weightman]

1:20 USED TO clog streams. People don't realize how little salmon are left. Seriously, talk to anyone in Washington over the age of 40. They'll tell you how when they were little there were streams you couldn't walk across without stepping on fish - but now you're lucky to catch one when you're trying to. To see more than 5 in a single river is incredibly lucky.

[@novaangle2183]

Yea but those people catching them should stop. I live by where salmon run and it's protected from people fishing in it.

[@garygrasser]

The Toutle Green Kalama Cowlirz Coweeman rivers in Cowlirz County WA were all like that in the 60's and early 70s. My biggest king salmon was 57 pounds and was half the size of the hogs that used to not be extinct because there were millions. Now the Toutle is dead along with two of my best friends because of a volcano and the rest were over netted, over fished and pureed by dam turbines.

[@Misterdalyus]

Bruce and Clark would be enraged knowing they couldn't save Martha

[@apple54345]

lol damn just made a similar comment... should've known 1 hour in someone would beat me to it.

[@gtRELIC]

That's heartbreaking

[@terileebruyere3482]

Dear Passenger Pigeons, as a member of the human race I'd like to apologize for our ignorance, and thank you for your sacrifice. Without your loss we may have destroyed so much more than we already have.

[@PrimalBoos]

true

[@pinstripecool34]

:(

[@garethdean6382]

The obliteration of a thousand species was heralded with a constant chorus of 'There are so many, what harm could >I< do?'

[@AliHSyed]

Woww that last passenger pigeon lived to 29 Years Old?! Who would've guessed piegeons could get that old? Like a 29 year old pigeon today would have been born in 1989. So much has happened since then. Like 5 Presidents, USSR Collapsed, 2Pac died, 9/11, everyone got computers and mobile phones, then eventually smart phones, OJ Simpson's Trial, Arab Spring, the International Space Station was built, we've sent 2 Robots to Mars, Balloon Boy Hoax of 2009, Annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia, Gravitational Waves were detected, Higgs Boson was discovered, Michael Jackson died, Iraq War, 2008 Financial Crisis, Princess Diana death.. .. That would be a lot for a little pigeon to live through.

[@svccscvv6214]

Things used to be much slower then, but that was a long time even from a human perspective, I'm 20 and I'm already feeling like I've lived forever

[@mads4it555]

Like you think the pigeons would care about any of that? /s

[@PrimalBoos]

What about Coronavirus?

[@gtRELIC]

And bird flu

[@AliHSyed]

@@gtRELIC especially relevant 🧐

[@rumplstiltztinkerstein]

One day we might have robots thinking that "you can never overkill humans", just as karma for us

[@stanleyholmes1266]

:(

[@imansol7269]

This makes me wanna cry, do societies ever learn!

[@MichaelSHartman]

Reason: greed, and the use of "unlimited supply" or "limitless".

[@theultimatemadman1126]

It still baffles me to think that it was even possible for them to get hunted to extinction. But, here we are.

[@UngoyPrime]

Need another video with the title of "Why Thousands of Species Died in Under a Century".

[@gardenofeels6872]

Soon there will be a KZbin video called "how humans became extinct in only a million years."

[@brassbuckles]

@@gardenofeels6872 I assume you're being sarcastic, because f that were the case, there'd have to be multiple humans alive in order to create said video. I mean, for starters even if you assume AI will create the video, humans are needed to maintain the infrastructure that produces electricity and provides internet.

[@ncteeter]

Y'all should do an episode about the American chestnut tree. We introduced a fungus and caused it to go virtually extinct, and render many habitats nearly devoid of life.

[@stanleyholmes1266]

Really? I was wondering why so many songs+stories about chestnuts and I never saw them sold in the grocery stores.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

This except from Wikipedia states that it was the unintended consequence of introducing a tree from Japan to the US that led to the spread of the fungus to the American Chestnut. The chestnut blight was accidentally introduced to North America around 1904 when Cryphonectria parasitica was introduced into the United States from East Asia from the introduction of the cultivation of Japanese chestnut trees into the United States for commercial purposes.

[@apple54345]

2:32 WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?!?!?!?!

[@zoofan9280]

apple54345 lol

[@Njald]

+

[@Shenron557]

LoL 😂 good one

[@desp8161]

What?

[@pupil8]

Generic Name episode of Love Lucy. Look up slowly I turn. 🤔

[@sechabamara3085]

Now if we could just manage to do the same to mosquitoes...

[@seraphin01]

yeah do that, make sure that so many birds, bats and insects goes extinct along with those mosquitoes, that's another smart idea

[@SimonNZ6969]

^Well actually only one breed of mosquitoes feed on Humans. Wiping out that one species would probably not do much harm. It would just be replaced by the other types. They one breed isn't a "key" species.

[@seraphin01]

I know for a fact there is more than that. Here in france we used to have one kind of mosquitoes before, now we got a new one called tiger mosquitoes, am pretty sure those in africa are also different ones.. so yeah anyway, wiping mosquitoes, as inconvenient as those buggers are is a big nono

[@katherinerichardson2273]

mosquitoes are pollinators and a major good since for thousands of birds insects and bats

[@katherinerichardson2273]

Christophe Paitrault and plants since the actually pollinate

[@expertexcavatinginc]

Wow. I had no idea. This is a great informative video yet again. Thanks.

[@pineco74]

1:45 when the fire nation attacked

[@Thee_Sinner]

The thumbnail caption can also apply to my brain cells during finals.

[@desp8161]

Lol

[@philandtrish]

A glib statement from a young adult who obviously has some growing up to do.

[@musclehank6067]

they all died because they tried to follow my workout routine only I am strong enough for it.

[@raghavmundra116]

Chutiye

[@korstmahler]

Have you considered that being a bird is in fact, for the weak?

[@bluetannery1527]

Muscle hank is my favorite character

[@ElectricPyroclast]

racist towards avians, how could you?! lol

[@ryanwitt3480]

THERE U R MUSCLE HANK

[@evelynlamoy8483]

ah yes. Passenger pigeon. The bison of the sky. We really need to be more careful about overhunting.

[@andybeans5790]

When Michael says that humans aren't always so great, the whole world feels a bit more guilty

[@ss_whole]

"This strength in numbers was their main defense against predators" I'm pretty sure that their ability to FLY was their main defense

[@bwenluck9812]

@Super Kyle But the ability to fly doesn't help if the predators also fly.... Think raptors! Large numbers assured that some would live to reproduce....

[@brassbuckles]

The predator satiation thing didn't apply to the grown birds, it was how they reproduced. Chicks would be left on the ground where they were easily accessed by predators. There would be so many chicks that the predators would be too full to eat more, so most would survive.

[@Hatman39]

I personally think that their flocking behaviour also played a role in their extinction. That is, if a non-flocking animal gets hunted its density will drop, requiring more effort from the predator to find prey. However, when an animal congregates into huge flocks this kind of balancing mechanism does not work. This is doubly true for humans, as we would not take a single pigeon, but a thousand of them suddenly become economically viable. (P.S. this is just speculation)

[@korstmahler]

From Billions to Nillions - the Passenger Pigeon story.

[@4gegtyreeyuyeddffvyt]

Korstmahler bwahahahahahahahahahaha

[@thstroyur]

An authorized biography; available now in a bookshop close to you

[@AKumar528]

If it's any consolation, the same book on humans will never be written or read ever, unless aliens land on Earth post human extinction

[@johnkennedysmith]

So after the last passenger pigeon died, did they eat it? Just curious.

[@gardenofeels6872]

Actually, she's stuffed and in a museum.

[@jiogcyihsugyiocjfdoivhphvw6821]

no

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

It is believed that she was the last, but perhaps there was a last wild one that got eaten. who knows.

[@gardenofeels6872]

@@maythesciencebewithyou It's possible, but all the scientists who studied passenger pigeons say Martha was the last one alive, and she died at the Cincinnati zoo in the 1920s. But maybe there was that last elusive renegade that kept out of view until he finally died of loneliness and was eaten by a chihuahua.

[@Reneelwaring]

I read in a history book that during the American Revolution they fed the troops with the passenger pigeon. It described how they did it, and the birds when they were roosting did not wake up when under fire from a gun as long as an injured one didn't fall to the ground. If it did the scuring it did trying to get away in the underbrush woke up the others.

[@johnminer1407]

My grandfather said he would walk out under a tree full of them and fire one shot with a 410 shotgun and have enough to feed the family of 4.(I'm 72).

[@brassbuckles]

I don't believe that, because if you've ever heard a gunshot from someone hunting, you know that sound would disturb the birds far more than rustling in the undergrowth ever could. It's likely a tall tale someone told that got written down as truth. Guns weren't quieter in the past; if anything they may have been louder.

[@1503nemanja]

It sucks so bad we failed to save the passenger pigeon, it sounds like it was good eating :(

[@1503nemanja]

Honestly I am surprised that the passenger pigeon was not saved, the buffalo only made it because people liked eating it and I don't think buffalo is even that tasty compared to this apparent delicacy.

[@ramchandersahu3686]

@@1503nemanja you monster. Go to hell

[@swjxx8468]

@@ramchandersahu3686 no u

[@AngellusBlack]

Damn... Someone should have saved Martha.

[@marcusmanchester7095]

The archaeological record does not reflect what you said about the population "always being large." Passenger pigeons largely eat the same things we do, therefore they are competitors for food, and they would have been for Amerindians as well. Eating the same foods we do also makes them a great meat source for us, which is why they were "so tasty," and yet in examining the caches of garbage at large Pre-Columbian sites like Cahokia, Passenger Pigeon bones are rare, rarer than other less abundant meat sources. I am more likely to subscribe to the theory that Passenger Pigeons were an indicator species, a species that was able to take advantage of a major environmental shift. That shift was caused by European disease and warfare, and the massive depopulation of North America. This caused tons of repercussions in nature. Another indicator species was the American Bison, a plains animal that spread as far as the East Coast in the same period of time between 1500 and 1750, and also experienced a precipitous fall.

[@jonnyblade3234]

Slightly related: I thought for the longest time that we had hunted the Bison to extinction.

[@mattjackson9859]

Turns out they were too small to actually carry passengers...

[@bwenluck9812]

@Matt Jackson Oh, Matt! 😄

[@Adam-lu3fb]

The exact same thing happened to the cod fish. From endless massive schools to next to nothing comparatively and can't seem to recover.

[@mrjacobpat]

oh look. Humans are monsters. Glad you re-enforced that for me.

[@mrjacobpat]

Jeez. It was just a comment pointing out that it isn’t really surprising that one of the major reasons this bird species went extinct is because of us. Also I’m trash too, yes. Try and make a difference if you want. I keep trying to be a better person too. Just see stuff like this which is very interesting. But reminds me that we haven’t come very far.

[@harshithanchan]

5:22 a group of people who believe "more we understand about the world ,the better we are at being humans " loved it

[@Kenlauderdale123]

Sixth mass extinction, cause: Homo sapiens 😨

[@svccscvv6214]

You mean Homo extinctors, with the occasional rare sapiens

[@mattblake9936]

Yup, none of this is natural, there is not supposed to be a single house on this planet, no cars, no iPhones. We took advantage of too much. We are just another animal, just happen to be very intelligent.

[@nicksummers5101]

It’s more and more foreseeable as time goes on, the extinction will start from Vaquitas, all rhinoceros species, Amir leopards. tigers,

[@shakeilhosein9892]

@@mattblake9936 An American evolutionary biologist claims that humans were an evolutionary mistake. He said what makes us different to other animals is a mutation that occurred thousands of years ago. You're right nothing about the way we live is natural. We are the only animal to not work in our environment and its a mistake by nature.

[@mattblake9936]

@RabidRoach are you an idiot, what kind of question is that

[@jasminewood395]

10k views in an hour, 1.1k thumbs up, that's over 10%, 9 thumbs down lol that's less that a 0.001% thumbs down... Right? Thats off top of my head but those are stellar numbers. You guys have a great fans base ! Love it!

[@remcrimson2750]

0:35 Kind of are fault? It was are fault! It was entirely are fault! It isn't 'kind of' if we both cut down their trees and hunted all of them down to a small number where they can't even defend each other!

[@SimonNZ6969]

I think he meant more in the sense that there is evidence they were already in decline.

[@overdose8329]

All those humans are dead now. So not our fault

[@gtRELIC]

Could may might

[@thepolarianempire]

What he was saying is that they most likely had a natural cycle where their populations would boom then shrink drastically however humans showed up right when they were entering a shrinking/decline part of the cycle and unknowingly shifted the balance to far in one direction leading to them n it bouncing back from the decline

[@ditto1958]

Passenger pigeons existed in huge numbers for only a short time in history. Following the first contacts in the early 1600s with Europeans, the Indians on the eastern seaboard died off in great numbers after contracting European diseases such as smallpox. For a couple of hundred years there were not enough people in North America to manage forests. Passenger pigeons or left with a surplus of food and their population exploded. As European diseases moved west across North America, and decimated Indian populations, similar things happened with the bison herds, as well as fish, deer and other wildlife

[@brassbuckles]

While there is evidence that Native American populations were not, as settlers were led to believe, sparse before Europeans showed up and brought new diseases, I haven't ever seen or heard anything about bison or pigeon populations being significantly smaller. Native Americans wouldn't have been able to eat every acorn, and they mostly only hunted the animals they could actually eat and use. While I don't think Native Americans were perfect, I also don't think they ever set out to actively eradicate species the way settlers did, unless it was very early after they arrived to North America. Even in their absence, wolves, bears, and cougars, among other now-rare predators, were significantly more abundant during that time, so populations were far from unmanaged. Prey species were abundant, but not overpopulated for the habitats that existed at the time. And, while there was some forest management (for example, burning forests in some regions to encourage grass growth and bison migration to the region), it wouldn't have eradicated or drastically reduced the bird populations. During the time period when the passenger pigeon went from billions to extinct, people were not only hunting them, but also destroying their oak forest habitat. It's easy to think that bison just couldn't have been in such numbers because the land can't support them, but settlers effectively ruined the West. It probably hasn't really been the same since before the Great Dust Bowl. Before people plowed the West down to dust and before it was fenced in, overgrazed, and dried up by cattle, bison were living in huge numbers and they weren't starving to death. In fact it's been shown that bison herds actually may help expand/deepen watering holes, where cattle befoul and destroy them. Bison dig up minerals. Bison do not graze grass down to the ground because they graze different types of grass at different times. In other words, bison were adapted to the land in a way that benefitted both the bison and their habitat.

[@pinklady7184]

This week, I heard that one third of our bees here in Ireland will become extinct by 2030. They include bumblebees.

[@connoroleary591]

Ireland is the only country in Europe without the Nightjar. It was common 60 years ago. When Ireland loses a football game it is headlines. When we lose a species of bird, nobody cares or notices.

[@redtobertshateshandles]

Yes. Here in Australia honey bees are waay less common than 40 years ago. Insects generally are less common too. I blame herbicides and insecticides. I use neither.

[@redtobertshateshandles]

@@connoroleary591 people are stupid idiots, unfortunately.

[@novaangle2183]

@@redtobertshateshandles The commercialization of pushing poisons to use on everyday yards and home disgusted me since I was a child. kill *weeds* they tell you to kill for no reason and spray junk wildly around to kill any sort of bug because bugs are gross. People disgust me.

[@shilohhawk2990]

Ah my favorite phrase, “it was kind of our fault” meaning “we hunted and ate these things to extinction”

[@Obsidianen]

Wasnt it the same for the Galapagos turtle and the dodo? The fat of the turtle made everything taste good, so they killed them and used it to make the dodo eadible.

[@danzervos7606]

Where I grew up one no longer sees Meadow Larks, Bobolinks or ring neck pheasants - all of with were common when I was young.

[@fairytaledollpatterns7258]

I want the Carolina parakeet back.

[@brassbuckles]

And that's one species that, assuming the climate wouldn't kill it again and we have enough DNA for it, would be a good candidate for de-extinction. They fed on cockleburrs. One downside is that anybody with cats or dogs would need to keep them away from these birds, because the birds were poisonous. Cats who ate them would die, and I imagine the same is true of dogs.

[@someone890]

The pigeons breeding on such a large scale, come across entire forests or meadows covered with pigeon eggs! I wonder?

[@thecreature7608]

Humans, it's always humans. It's such a tragedy that we couldn't at least keep them alive in zoos. Considering how humanities track record is, and the fact that we are the cause of death for over 100 million sharks a year, which per my knowlage all happens illegaly, it isn't that much of a suprise when this was legal, and on land.

[@bobby4194]

I agree it's always humans. We got those dinosaurs real good.

[@ShadeSlayer1911]

Actually it's not always humans. We just feel more guilty when it's our fault. But species go extinct all the time without our interference. Background Extinction Rates are a thing. Yes, humans made it much greater, but it's still definitely not always humans.

[@gartengeflugel924]

ShadeSlayer1911 True, but the rate it's happening at right now is terrifying. Many species that aren't extinct yet will face extinction because their numbers already have declined too much. If a wild population can't sustain itself anymore, a species is almost definitely doomed. Captive breeding with the few leftover individuals sometimes works quite well, but often doesn't.

[@thecreature7608]

ShadeSlayer1911 I know, but in cases like these, where billions get reduced to zero in a very short amount of time, like the video said under a centuty, without any disease or (freak) natural disasters, the culprit will most likely be humans

[@mikerd1994]

Well I don't think its generally a problem if our actions end up driving species to extinction. If, as a byproduct of our success we end up creating an environment that some species cannot survive in then we should not feel bad. We are not evil for being the most successful organism on the planet. But it is definitely important that we try to craft an environment around as many species as possible, especially ones important to our own survival.

[@annettel9994]

Love you Michael!

[@PlasteredDragon]

You guys should look into the extinction of the Stephens Island Wren, it's an amazing story. Within a few years of being discovered, it was extinct.

[@justaraptorridingamericanw3382]

Posted an hour ago and already at 13k views. This channel has grown fast over the past 2 years.

[@Akbballer33]

1:21 Why salmon USED to clog streams...darn overfishing. Still a lot but definitely dwindling here in AK.

[@atronite]

What happens when you have too many predators? Hunt-able animals start going extinct. Normally the predators are supposed to die off in mass starvation and then those animals which were prey could come back. Then one of those predators learned how to farm and domesticate animals, and mass starvation events and diseases became less and less effective at radically reducing the numbers of those predators. Those predators were humans, and evolution is the reason we became smart. Nature has nobody but itself to blame for allowing a species such as ourselves to get this smart.

[@stanleyholmes1266]

That's one of the reasons why humans have war. To replace the death by starvation that isn't happening. But it's war against the unarmed civilian population that does this, as conflict between healthy armed groups is to keep that trimming from happening to their own group. You could also blame soup kitchens and people donating to fight hunger for being responsible for the extreme ecological imblances. Yes. I'm saying those who dedicate to helping others are themselves responsible for an equal amount of harm as a cascade effect. There are no "better" or "worse" actions of lifestyle to take for humankind or the members there'of; only what is suitable for the involved and the situation dealing with.

[@zombieblood1675]

Pigeons will be monumental in spreading my zombie virus.

[@thegaminghobo4693]

Yo can I be like a zombie king and own some

[@Aeronor2001]

When you first go back in time to the 1800's?

[@noxabellus]

i think you mean instrumental

[@antarath517]

Because we'll never run out of humans to infect, right?

[@barneymiller7894]

Really? mine is spread by mosquitos.

[@pantscar]

in 400 years a robot will release a video about where all the people went

[@tariffictypist7372]

The saddest part about the last carrier pigoen is that the exact same cage that the last carrier pigoen died in, was the same one the last Carolina Parakeet died in as well Two extinctions in one cage

[@moronkiller4962]

I hope one day we have the tech to bring them back from the dead

[@bwenluck9812]

@Moronkiller496 But you'd also have to do something about the grifters who have a need to exploit these birds for profit....

[@LowtechLLC]

Farm expansion toward the rockies wiped out locust habitat. The huge flocks fed on even more massive swarms of locusts. The locust died out first.

[@stanleyholmes1266]

Oh. The locust swarms were fed on by the pigeon swarms and the pigeons didn't overfeed and wipe out their food source because they were a sufficiently common food source themselves. Ecological balance of mass'groups and not only the singular individuals of species.

[@brassbuckles]

I don't think the passenger pigeon roamed out west; it was more of an east-of-the-Rockies species. I could be wrong, there. They primarily were forest birds, and would migrate with the acorn harvest. It's possible they ate some locusts, but I'm not sure their range overlapped.

[@Saskeeko19]

A question. Why does imagination in dreams feel like a perfect hologram of what you are imagining, but in real life like it's blurred and some details are missing?

[@fooguwu]

Some future species is gonna make a video about humans with the same title.

[@izurielpalanayukei5140]

Here's a thought: Ducks die if they are kept solitary. Literally, they just die of loneliness. Maybe these pidgeons were similar. A flock of 10 or maybe even 100 wasn't enough so satiate their sense of community. Of course Martha would die if she didn't have her hundreds (or thousands) of family and friends that she *evolved* to be with didn't even *exist.*

[@gardenofeels6872]

I had a single male mallard duck for 15 years and he did fine. Ducks do not die if they are kept singly.

[@jeanphillippes2196]

Your piece is a good advert for passenger insurance.

[@veggieboyultimate]

I imagine if these guys were still alive, they would probably make home in large cities of the Northeast like New York and Boston. Please bring these guys back to life scientists.

[@brassbuckles]

They were forest birds, so unlike rock doves that were imported, they would likely prefer forests and farmlands where they could access acorns, fruits, grains, and perhaps insects. While there's plenty of trash in cities and plenty of people who'd be willing to feed them, a city wouldn't really have enough food available to sustain a flock of the size that passenger pigeons traveled in. You also wouldn't want them roosting in a city anyhow, not in the numbers they were in. They were about the same size as domestic pigeons/rock doves, but flocked in far greater, closer numbers. That's a whole lot of pigeon poop, and a lot of weight on whatever structure or structures they roosted on. In a city, they'd be caving in roofs, flying into windows, etc. Remember, they weren't the same thing as your regular street pigeons, which are actually feral domesticated animals.

[@MichaelLangell]

Do a follow up video on band tailed pigeons! They are the closest related to the passenger pigeon and there population has been increasing over the last 20 years. They are native to the west side of America.

[@RyanBitler]

Never eaten a passenger pidgin but I have eaten a regular one and I have to agree. They are tasty.

[@peterkops6431]

Really important content. Thanks.

[@Myjacob99]

Humans truly are the biggest pest in earth’s history.

[@jameseaton264]

from things I have read is they preferred mature trees to roost at the time the country was going through reconstruction and many of them areas were timbered off as well as others issues

[@defenderoftheadverb]

"...sleeping on top of each other..." err that's not sleeping Michael.

[@YellowPenetrator]

Before seeing the title of this video I would have laughed if somebody told me pidgeons could go distinct But it actually makes sense and is a bad thing

[@motheraiya]

"It's kind of our fault" tell me something I don't know, babe

[@greyscott5908]

Because only know you love them when you let them go. -Passenger

[@Mr.pigeon935]

I miss my great great great great grandfather pigeon. He severed in ww1

[@123four...]

I see you're a fellow pigeon enthusiast.

[@Mr.pigeon935]

@@123four... yes

[@tariffictypist7372]

I still cant believe human beings actually got all 5 billion, do you know how hard that must have been, destroying all 5 billion of anything via shooting them must have been extremely tedious

[@Lukos0036]

Humanity ruins everything.

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

Thanks now I have a craving for passenger pigeon

[@hustlehank6855]

They all died on a mission to steal coins for me

[@captain54526]

The extinction of the American Chesnutt tree because of the Chinese Blight is the main reason the Passenger Pigeon went extinct more so than any other factor. One in four trees in the American Forest was a Chesnutt and in an instant they were gone at the same period as the Passenger Pigeon.

[@DoctorOctobussy]

I think people are too harsh on those who came before us. We're a relatively new species, completely unique and learning as we go, but don't forget we're still animals. Show me one other animal in the world who wouldn't make the most out of an easy food source, let alone have the intelligence to preserve it

[@josephpercente8377]

Read 1491, it posits that pigeon and Buffalo populations didn't explode until the native population of humans died out from introduced diseases. It states the disease line was 150 miles ahead of the European population, and by the time Europeans settled this area it allowed these animal populations to increase dramatically.

[@ErikGiovani]

God damn I wish I could have tried some pigeon meat

[@tajhaybanks8656]

Quaglium Quagnarr a dove is just a white pigeon

[@Gitami]

They plan to bring them back through clones, we may see them and woolly mammoths on some dinner plates before we die. We just might not be able to afford such a plate though.

[@minty_eggs]

a dove is a small pigeon squab is pigeon as a food

[@ErikGiovani]

Apemanwithcalculator it’s called a joke, so your username checks out ya dummy

[@zw5509]

Minty Eggs Squab is a young pigeon a fat baby you take from the nest. It cannot fly. Wood pigeon young are especially fat and delicious!

[@raibiksarkarbardhan8732]

Besides,Stellers sea cow(Russia),quagga(Africa),dodo(Mauritius) are some extinct animals.

[@jb-arts3365]

I feel so sad that they are extinct 😭😭

[@seanwalsh4142]

Oh man, you wore me out. I’m gonna check out that 4 rotor Rx7.

[@JakeThe_Dog]

Man they sounded like a god food

[@Spongebrain97]

The Ambassador probably made a mean pigeon pie

[@Zeldarw104]

whoa, mom cheri ami.😢 Gone but not forgotten.

[@DesperateAbroad]

"Why did the passenger pigeons die?" *scientist reaches into a hat*, *pulls out a slip of paper* it says "it was our fault", *knocks the hat over*, *paper goes flying* they all say "it was our fault"

[@lorenzomaldonado2050]

Pigeon is actually a delicusy in my culture and many around the world.( they kinda tast like dark meat chiken, phesent or rabbit )

[@Bynggo]

If you read diaries from the era, of people who lived on the plains, they record that when the birds were migrating there were pig farmers who would wait for the birds to settle at night and then shake the trees so their mob of pigs would eat their fill. Also the trapping of the birds and shipping them to Britain and European tables for the ‘good old’ pigeon pie. The birds suffered the same fate as the bison and the beaver….greed

[@stanleyholmes1266]

I hate this I hate this I hate this.

[@infinitejest441]

Humanity is the greediest species

[@markp4967]

Earthlings : wants to terraform planets of the solar system... Also earthlings : can't save their own planet

[@fenzz5511]

They didn’t deserve to die...

[@tiffanymarie9750]

"super tasty" should be it's own extinction threat level. Least concerned to super tasty to extinct.