Project Passenger Pigeon Archives & Resources

This is a project created by the students and teachers of the Environmental Science classes at Elgin High School [IL] to raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity. In their words: "We became passionate about biodiversity through the story of Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon who died on September 1st, 1914. In honor of Martha, we are hosting a National Biodiversity Teach In to mark the 100th anniversary of Martha’s death. We are hosting a series of webinars with professionals from all over the country on September 22 through 26, 2014."

Learn More

Feral Theatre and ONCA invited the public to become part of Martha’s Flock in a collective effort to affirm and deepen our memory of the passenger pigeon. The task for each participant was to make a tribute to Martha/the passenger pigeon in movement, film it and upload it to YouTube. While the tributes were from seemingly isolated individuals, they were then collated to make a virtual flock of tributes. The flock was featured on Feral and ONCA’s websites, and they held a screening event at the ONCA Gallery in Brighton.

Learn More

• Michigan State University Museum prepared a 1,000 square foot traveling exhibit dealing with the passenger pigeon and broader issues of extinction.
• Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (Wausau, WI) hosted an exhibit on passenger pigeons and other extinct birds beginning in September 2014.
• The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences hosted Nature's Struggle: Survival & Extinction from March to October 2014. Divided into three main sections, this exhibition engaged visitors on the history of biodiversity in the Midwest through the eyes of three different narrators, living in three distinct time periods: 1820, 1905, and 2014. These narrators show us the difference in our environment over time, the causes of those changes, and the startling consequences of our actions. A memorial to the species we have lost, including the passenger pigeon, provided a reminder of the importance of these issues and concepts. After experiencing these stories, visitors entered the Epilogue—a space dedicated to the important work that still needs to be done, and how we all can help prevent extinctions and further environmental damage. This portion of the exhibit encouraged visitors to take action, to learn more, and to be the environmental stewards we sorely need.
• The Nature Museum also hosted the installation of The Lost Bird Project by sculptor Todd McGrain on the museum grounds. This work showcased statues of extinct avian species, including the passenger pigeon.

• The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences hosted a special presentation and book signing in honor of the publication of a A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction by Joel Greenberg.
• The Nature Museum also hosted a symposium, titled Why Prevent Extinction?, from May to June 2014. The panel discussions convened renowned leaders in the fields of population biology, art, philosophy, and ecology. They were collected and published by author Jill Riddell.

Learn More

David is a native of Australia who has been living in the US for a short while. He did not know about passenger pigeons until he attended an exhibit at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago called Nature's Struggle: Survival and Extinction. He was captivated by the story and was moved to write this poem.

The Last Flight of the Passenger Pigeon

This poem, 1914, The Cincinnati Zoo, was written specifically for Project Passenger Pigeon. It had not previously been published.

1914, The Cincinnati Zoo

River of the Sky, a short story that takes place in 1897-98, when there was hope of the passenger pigeon's survival. A Civil War veteran tells the young listener of what it was like in the heyday of the passenger pigeon.

River of Sky

Holding a lifelong interest in passenger pigeons, when the opportunity arose to acquire one of his own, Garrie made the leap and a dream came true. But he wanted to learn more about his new acquisition, George, and this is the story of that search.

My Passenger Pigeon: One Man’s Search

The story of the passenger pigeon has affected many people over the years. This memoir tells of how Ben became entranced by this bird and how it led him to his current research into passenger pigeon genetics.

A Tiny Tube of Clear Liquid

This is the story behind Violet's award winning video, The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and the Death of Martha: A Turning Point in Conservation as well as the link to the video.

The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon

This poem, One and Then Another, has appeared in an earlier version in the Akros Review.

One and Then Another

Perry Stambaugh tells the story of the passenger pigeon, with an emphasis on the bird in Pennsylvania. This was originally published in the April 2005 issue of Penn Lines magazine. He is the Senior Director and Editor of RE Magazine and Straight Talk, published in Arlington, Virginia.

The Article

Amy tells how the great passenger pigeon nesting of 1871 inspired her to write her novel One Came Home.

One Came Home

This poem, Audubon’s Passenger Pigeons, is not previously published. The poem describes Audubon’s famous painting of the Passenger Pigeons from Birds of North America.

Audubon’s Passenger Pigeons

Sherrida Woodley's story describes why she chose the mysterious passenger pigeon as a major subject of her novel, A Quick Fall of Light.

Why I Chose the Mysterious Passenger Pigeon

The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History developed a 9-panel exhibit on the passenger pigeon and extinction entitled A Shadow Over the Earth. There are two blank panels so the exhibit can encompass local cases and/or materials. Available in English and French. They can be downloaded from the buttons below.

Museum Panels English

Museum Panels French

Each segment of the presentation was created by a different expert: 1) story of the bird by Garrie Landry (University of Louisiana, Lafayette); 2) extinction by Stan Temple (University of Wisconsin, Madison); 3) connections between people and nature by Matthew Magoc (Audubon Center at Riverlands, West Alton, MO), and 4) sustainable relations with other species by Bill Tweit (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia). This Power Point Presentation is meant as a resource to allow teachers and others to present the portions they are interested in. (P3 is not responsible for the accuracy of additions made by subsequent users.)

P3 Powerpoint

• The Indiana State Museum created a children's play, entitled "A Pigeon's Tale," to tell the passenger pigeon story.
• "The Savage Passengers" written by Chicago playwright, Bret Angelos, is a four character play. It is based on the true story of actor Junius Brutus Booth wanting to hold a funeral for a bushel of passenger pigeons to protest their slaughter in Louisville in 1834. A portion of the play was performed as part of the City Lit Theater Art of Adaptation Festival in Chicago (summer 2013).

Anthony Philip Heinrich, America's first symphony composer, wrote a nine movement symphony devoted to the passenger pigeon (The Columbiad, or Migration of American Wild Passenger Pigeons) which includes a choral portion that has been translated. Heinrich was the first full time symphony composer in the United States, earning the appellation “America’s Beethoven.” He lived in a cabin for a year in the woods of Kentucky, and birds were the subject of several of his pieces. His masterwork was dedicated to the passenger pigeon with each movement of the piece representing a different phase in the life of the bird. 

Yale University Performance

To prepare teachers to address resource conservation and species protection issues highlighted by the passenger pigeon extinction, P3 developed and distributed a selection of single-lesson activities for elementary, middle, and high school grades. P3 also encouraged teachers to engage their students in marking the centenary of the passenger pigeon extinction by providing lessons about biodiversity and changes to ecosystems that intertwine the story of the passenger pigeon with contemporary issues.

The curriculum supported P3’s overall goals by exploring how human activity impacts other species and motivating students to take actions that promote biodiversity and prevent human-caused extinctions. The main themes of conservation, habitat preservation, and species protection are explored through the study of the passenger pigeon’s story, including use of several videos from the P3 film, From Billions to None. Students connect the story of the passenger pigeon to contemporary, regional examples of species conservation efforts and explore service learning and citizen science opportunities in their regions.

Lesson Plan #1 for 5th-10th grades: "What is the Passenger Pigeon?"

Provider: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences

In this lesson, students are introduced to the story of the passenger pigeon and the role that humans played in this story. Students use video, images, and nonfiction texts to learn about the size of passenger pigeon flocks and their impacts on the people who witnessed them. Students make personal connections to the passenger pigeon and its story.

Lesson 1: What is the Passenger Pigeon?

Lesson Plan #2 for 5th-10th grades: "State Historical Records"

Provider: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences

In this lesson, students watch a video clip from the From Billions to None documentary to learn about the history of the passenger pigeon in North America and about the institutions that have preserved the record of these amazing birds. Students then analyze historical data from their own state and discuss passenger pigeon movements and population changes throughout the state.

LESSON 2: STATE HISTORICAL RECORDS

Lesson Plan #3 for 9th-12th grades: "Modeling Population Decline"

Provider: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences

In this lesson, students participate in a simple simulation illustrating one factor that contributed to the decline of passenger pigeon populations. Students discuss the accuracies and limitations of the model and then develop their own models that show how multiple factors have combined to cause a decrease in the population of a local organism of conservation concern.

Lesson 3: Modeling Population Decline

6th Grade Science: "Passenger Pigeons: Nomads Lost"

Provider: American Association for the Advancement of Science

In this lesson, students explore the concept and implications of extinction using the example of the passenger pigeon, once an extremely abundant species that was completely eliminated by humans. Students also investigate how the technologies that were seemingly unrelated to the loss of the bird were actually central to its extinction.

Passenger Pigeons: Nomads Lost

Grades 3-12: "Where Have All the Predators Gone?"

Provider: Brian "Fox" Ellis, Fox Tails International

Time estimate: Two 50-minute periods

In this lesson, students brainstorm a list of predators that currently live or once lived in the area. Students will choose one predator from either list and research its needs as well as the reasons it became extirpated or factors that threaten it with extirpation.

Where Have All the Predators Gone?

To celebrate the millennium in 2000, the City of Toronto commissioned the Waterfront Trail Artists to work with the city’s school children in various art projects. One effort involved passenger pigeons, where the kids studied the bird and made origami passenger pigeons. But the really exciting outreach component was that this work culminated in the “Flight of the Passenger Pigeons” whereby hundreds of children marched along Lake Shore Boulevard proudly holding their birds aloft. Similar events were held in 2014 to draw a wide audience to the passenger pigeon story and themes of P3.

Passenger pigeons were the cheapest terrestrial protein then available so they became a commodity sold in local and national markets to help feed the growing human population of Canada and the United States. They were both a mainstay of the poor and frequent offering in some of the fanciest venues of the 19th century. P3 worked with chefs and others to offer menus based on 19th century recipes as a way to focus attention on the procurement and use of biological resources then and now (open ocean fishing is the closest current analogue to the unregulated market hunting that decimated North American wildlife a century ago).

The history of the passenger pigeon is filled with fascinating human characters whose stories would be well suited for dramatizations. There are, for example, Julius Brutus Booth who wanted to hold a funeral for eight dead passenger pigeons because he so opposed their slaughter; Etta Wilson, whose father was from a long line of Ottawa chiefs and healers and whose mother was a missionary’s daughter, helped process the thousands of pigeons her father killed but then as an adult devoted her life to bird conservation; and Henry Roney, a music teacher who tried to stop the killing at the last large nesting in Michigan in 1878.

Courtesy of Domenico D'Alessandro: 

"Flying kites is one of the most loved and creative hobbies shared around the world. The “Fly a Kite for Endangered Species” event proposes to create a one day event on the centenary of the death of the last passenger pigeon on September 1, 1914, and promote the protection for all endangered species on this planet. The goals are to disseminate information on the plight of fellow creatures and raise money to donate to WWF. This idea came to me as a participant artist in the Project Passenger Pigeon. As I was working on my particular art work for the occasion it dawned on me that a large participatory event would generate more interest than any personal art piece. The aim is to have a world-wide coordinated event with shared photos and videos collected on the Fly a Kite for Endangered Species Facebook page. All kite organizations and art institutes are welcome to participate by posting to this page. A special request of participation goes to school districts around the world to have children involved in this event. Participants can post progress reports and communicate with each other."