On September 1, 1914, Martha—the last known passenger pigeon—died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her death marked the extinction of a species that had once been among the most abundant birds in North America.
Passenger pigeons traveled in enormous flocks, sometimes described as so vast that they darkened the sky. Their sheer numbers influenced forests and ecosystems across the eastern United States and Canada.
Yet abundance offered no protection. Commercial hunting, the expansion of rail transport and telegraph communications that enabled hunters to track flocks, and widespread habitat loss drove the species into rapid decline. Martha’s death became an enduring symbol of the consequences of unregulated exploitation and the fragility of even apparently inexhaustible wildlife.
