Pigeons to the slaughter: How Petoskey helped hunt the passenger pigeon to extinction

[marmar]

(Detroit Free Press) PETOSKEY — In 1914, the very last known passenger pigeon died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Now, 109 years later, passenger pigeons are most famously known as a species driven to extinction.

Historical records state passenger pigeons were once so numerous they darkened the skies when flying overhead. They were so easy to hunt that multiple pigeons could be killed with a single shotgun blast, or simply knocked from the sky with a pole.

But few people know the history of passenger pigeons and Michigan. Large-scale nests — providing migratory homes to millions of birds in one location — were found throughout Northern Michigan. There are records of nests near Boyne Falls and farther south on the Manistee River. The largest nest, however, was found just north of Petoskey near Crooked Lake.

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The pigeons were easy prey, gathering in such large numbers as they did, and the Crooked Lake nest proved an alluring target for hunters. Thousands descended upon the Petoskey area for a gruesome wholesale slaughter. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/history/2023/04/11/pigeons-to-the-slaughter-how-petoskey-helped-hunt-the-passenger-pigeon-to-extinction/70084173007/