Operation Turtle Dove

On the 100th anniversary of the extinction of North America’s Passenger Pigeon [Monday 1 September, 2014], the RSPB is highlighting the plight of the Turtle Dove, which is currently halving in number every six years.

Just like the now-extinct Passenger Pigeon, the Turtle Dove is a migratory bird. The species nests in the UK and Europe and spends the winter in Africa, south of the Sahara.

Tara Proud, of the RSPB, said: “The decline of the Passenger Pigeon is a strikingly similar story to the decline of our very own Turtle Dove, which currently is halving in number every six years. It’s too late for Passenger Pigeon, but 100 years on we don’t have to accept that Turtle Doves will suffer the same fate. Turtle Doves are the UK’s fastest declining bird species. For every 20 doves we had in 1970, we now only have one. At this rate, the bird’s UK extinction as a nesting species is a real possibility.”

Operation Turtle Dove was launched in May 2012 to stop the Turtle Dove following the same path as the Passenger Pigeon and is a partnership between the RSPB, Conservation Grade, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust and Natural England.

Tara Proud added: “Together, we are identifying the primary causes of the decline through research right across their long migration. We then develop urgent practical solutions – such as advising farmers how they can provide food for Turtle Doves on their land.”

A Review on Martha

The Passenger Pigeon was once the most numerous bird on the planet, probably by a huge margin. The statistics that Mark Avery recounts on population size, breeding colonies, roosts and migrating flocks are simply mind-boggling, completely dwarfing anything we can see today. There were almost certainly somewhere between five and ten billion Passenger Pigeons in North America early in the nineteenth century.

Mark Avery provides a very useful digest of the vast literature on this species and comments on various aspects of Passenger Pigeon ecology, its dependence on native broadland forest and its mast production and statistics on population dynamics. He discusses habitat loss and the unbelievable slaughter of the birds (for food) in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

The story is a tragic one and well told, the story of a man-made extinction. Martha was the last surviving Passenger Pigeon and died 100 years ago in captivity, in Cincinatti zoo. Martha's message to us, so well reinforced by Avery, is that we should do our utmost to make sure that such an event cannot happen again.

Essential reading for anyone concerned with conservation, habitat change, loss of important food plants, modern farming methods and indiscriminate shooting. It is easy to say that the Turtle Dove will not become the new Passenger Pigeon - but can we be sure?

A Message From Martha

A Message From Martha is the title of a book recently published by Bloomsbury; written by Mark Avery it catalogues the demise of the Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius. Mark writes that we should remember the passenger pigeon because of the largest-scale human-caused extinction in history. The passenger pigeon is among the most famous of American birds, but not because of its beauty, or its 60-mile-an-hour flight speed. But for its extinction from a population of more than 5 billion birds, in the early to mid 19th century, to zero in 1914. 100 years ago this week, the very last pigeon of her kind died in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her name was Martha, and her passing merits our close attention today.

Mercilessly slaughtered by the tens of millions at breeding colonies in the Northern USA and at huge wintertime roosts in the South during the post-Civil War era, passenger pigeons were shipped by trainloads to dinner tables in homes and restaurants across the East. Their population fell from biblical numbers at midcentury to tiny, aimless flocks in 1890. By around 1900 the few birds that remained were all in captivity. The last male died in 1910, leaving Martha as a barren relic of past abundance.

Martha was the last to die. She was thought to be 29 years old and had never lived in the wild. She is now in the Smithsonian.

At times I found myself reading Avery's book with a lump in my throat. How could this happen? Or be allowed to happen? The statistics on population size, breeding colonies, roosts and migration flocks are simply mind-boggling, completely dwarfing anything we can see today. The Passenger Pigeon was capable of flying at 60 m.p.h. Imagine a flock recorded as being a mile wide, flying overhead for four hours, blanking out the sun - a flock 240 miles long. It stretches the bounds of credulity. And yet so it was.

John Fitzpatrick of Cornell Lab for Ornithology said: We need to imagine Martha asking us, “Have you learned anything from my passing?” Timely conservation action really does work, even for species that have reached alarmingly low numbers. The word 'timely' though, needs to be emphasised. It is easy to say that the Turtle Dove will not become the new Passenger Pigeon - but can we be sure?

I would suggest that 'A Message From Martha' is required reading for anyone interested in conservation and biodiversity and the inevitable fate of many of our endangered species if we don't act now.