The Passenger pigeon

vogelcommando

vogelcommando

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
In this thread I want to gather as much as possible information about Passenger pigeons being kept in captivity.
First I ofcourse checked ZTL to find out how the sithuation in Europe was. 11 collections are mentioned to have had the species and 3 of them should have bred them ( at least ) :
- Berlin - Aquarium unter den Linden ( not existing anymore ) : 1869
- Berlin Zoo - at least from 1872 till 1888
- Dresden - should have bred them somewhere before 1900
- Hamburg - ( not existing anymore ) 1891 till ?
- Cologne - from 1860 onwards
- Dublin - 1890
- Amsterdam - at least in 1851
- Den Haag - ( not existing anymore ) no info
- Rotterdam - no info
- Menagerie of the Earl of Derby - at least frm 1832 till 1851. First breeding 1832, later bred in large numbers
- London - 1832 ( bred them that year ) 1852 - 1857 - 1858 and 1860
From the first breeding at London a found a small note in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London Vol 1 ( 1853 ) page 10 :

kweek trekduif Proc. London 1832.png

At theMenagerie of Lord Derby ( Knowsley Hall ) the species did realy well and at an auction after his dead ( 1851 ) no less then 70 Passenger pigeons were offered ( I know at least Artis - Amsterdam obtained one or more of them on this auction ).
Lord Derby had been so succesfull with the Passenger pigeon that he kept part of his group even free-flying in his park.
Beause of the large numbers in the wild and the large number offered for sell ( at least in 1851 ) I'm sure more European collections must have kept the species but ... sofar no more information to be found.
From America also little information is published. Well know is ofcourse the last one at the Cincinnati Zoo but others that that, hardly any information !
Hope some ZooChatters can help to make the list of former keepers of Passenger pigeons a lot longer.
 

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When I was doing a bit of research in the Bronx Zoo archives I came across a fascinating letter from William Hornaday (Bronx) to Sol Stephan (Cincinnati). Stephan was the (a?) North American representative for the Hagenbeck's animal trading arm at the time. Hornaday was asking Stephan about obtaining various animals for the Bronx including, prominently, Passenger pigeons. This was, as I recall, quite late in the extermination of the birds and Stephan replied that he could not obtain any at any cost. They were still in the Cincinnati collection at that time. I don't recall the date of this correspondence.
 
I was doing some research last year and I was a bit shocked to find out that passenger pigeons had bred at London Zoo. I had been led to believe that one of the reasons they died out was due to a reduction in population size. I once had a talk with a keeper who helped with the successful breeding of Mauritius pink pigeons at Jersey Zoo. As passenger pigeons also bred in captivity, zoos could perhaps have done more to save them from extinction.
 
Dassie rat said:
I was doing some research last year and I was a bit shocked to find out that passenger pigeons had bred at London Zoo. I had been led to believe that one of the reasons they died out was due to a reduction in population size. I once had a talk with a keeper who helped with the successful breeding of Mauritius pink pigeons at Jersey Zoo. As passenger pigeons also bred in captivity, zoos could perhaps have done more to save them from extinction.
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In theory, yes.
But remember the era we are discussing. The Cincinnati Zoo was working to build Passenger pigeon numbers in the late 19th century but could not pull it off. Zoos did not cooperate in conservation projects at that time. Most zoos barely thought of it. Although the New York Zoological Society with the Bison Society did have early success on their own, coordinated captive breeding of the sort you suggest didn't come about for another 50 years or so.
And only a few decades earlier in the 19th century Passenger pigeons were as numerous as the grass on the plains. No one anticipated that such a thing was possible.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20
 
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Reading about the last breeding attempts of passenger pigeon, they were kept crowded in small aviaries with domestic pigeons. It looks like these conditions, and lack of understanding of the danger of inbreeding, meant that the species died out in captivity.
 
Some other notes about the last Passenger pigeons at Cincinnati:
1878 the Zoo recieved 8 birds ( another source even mention 10 birds ) and they were bred at least 6 times.
Martha - the very last one of her species was said to be 29 years old when she died Sept. 1 1914 but I found a note that she was hatched in 1888 which would her make "only" 26 at the time she died ( ? ).
A pitty that so little concrete information has been collected at that time and even more a pitty that no more has been done to save the species......

trekduif cincennati zoo - gids 1924.png
Martha - the very last Passenger pigeon
 

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Dassie rat said:
I was doing some research last year and I was a bit shocked to find out that passenger pigeons had bred at London Zoo. I had been led to believe that one of the reasons they died out was due to a reduction in population size. I once had a talk with a keeper who helped with the successful breeding of Mauritius pink pigeons at Jersey Zoo. As passenger pigeons also bred in captivity, zoos could perhaps have done more to save them from extinction.
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Indeed zoos could have done more, but remember that passenger pigeons occurred in enormous numbers in the 19th century (as @Zooplantman has reminded us). No-one imagined that they might become extinct until it was too late - the concept of captive breeding to rescue an endangered species had never crossed anyone's mind. It was only in the early years of the 20th Century that the danger to large mammals such the American bison, Przewalski's horse and Pere David's deer concentrated the minds of a few people in Europe and America.
 
I also question whether there would be any appeal for zoos holding passenger pigeons. While we can easily know say we would love to see a living passenger pigeon, it would be the equivalent of someone know wanting to see canada geese or grey squirrels in zoos. Even ordinary people could see them so often in the wild, either in their front yard or in parks, that there was no need to see them in zoos. Seeing that zoos were primarily entertainment venues in this age, they probably felt they were better off exhibiting a similar sized tropical bird species instead. Most tropical birds also are in colors that tend to be more exciting to the average zoo visitor.
 
Neil chace said:
I also question whether there would be any appeal for zoos holding passenger pigeons. While we can easily know say we would love to see a living passenger pigeon, it would be the equivalent of someone know wanting to see canada geese or grey squirrels in zoos. Even ordinary people could see them so often in the wild, either in their front yard or in parks, that there was no need to see them in zoos. Seeing that zoos were primarily entertainment venues in this age, they probably felt they were better off exhibiting a similar sized tropical bird species instead. Most tropical birds also are in colors that tend to be more exciting to the average zoo visitor.
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This isn't sexy enough for you?
passenger-pigeon-member-species-1914.jpg
 
Zooplantman said:
This isn't sexy enough for you?
passenger-pigeon-member-species-1914.jpg
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I do not personally dislike the looks of a passenger pigeon. I just think it would not interest the average zoo visitor. Figure, when was the last time you saw a blue jay, which is another very good looking native bird, in a zoo? Or a cardinal, american robin, wild turkey, canadian goose, or american goldfinch?
 
Jurek7 said:
Reading about the last breeding attempts of passenger pigeon, they were kept crowded in small aviaries with domestic pigeons. It looks like these conditions, and lack of understanding of the danger of inbreeding, meant that the species died out in captivity.
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Well they were social breeders, with one of the main theories of their demise being that once numbers were reduced past a certain point, they failed to breed anymore. So I imagine the pigeon idea was based upon their social breeding behavior. But in the wild they bred in massive flocks that could not be imitated in captivity, I wonder if they would even breed in a flock of a few dozen in captivity with any regularity.

Perhaps we will never know, but in my opinion the Passenger Pigeon even today would be a hard species to breed in captivity given what we know about it. The real shame is that people began to care too late about their demise. At least their demise motivated lawmakers to pass the Lacey Act ending the for-profit trade in terrestrial wildlife.
 
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nczoofan said:
Well they were social breeders, with one of the main theories of their demise being that once numbers were reduced past a certain point, they failed to breed anymore. So I imagine the pigeon idea was based upon their social breeding behavior. But in the wild they bred in massive flocks that could not be imitated in captivity, I wonder if they would even breed in a flock of a few dozen in captivity with any regularity.

Perhaps we will never know, but in my opinion the Passenger Pigeon even today would be a hard species to breed in captivity given what we know about it. The real shame is that people began to care too late about their demise. At least their demise motivated lawmakers to pass the Lacey Act ending the for-profit trade in terrestrial wildlife.
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There is no evidence to support the view that the Passenger Pigeon would be hard to breed in captivity; indeed the evidence is that they could be easily bred in captivity to the extent that they were given away and even liberated. In Clinton Keeling's book "Where the Crane Danced", for example, it is mentioned that the Earl of Derby made "a presentation from Knowsley of a number of Passenger Pigeons"; this was in 1850. But, as you correctly say, they were community breeders so success with a small number of birds would e more limited. The fact is that most of the captive breeding was at a time when the Passenger Pigeon was still very common, so they was little incentive to maintain breeding. The Passenger Pigeon did not start to decline in the wild until around the 1870s then rapidly declined through the following twenty years. I am not familiar with the details of the Lacey Act, but if it could have been brought in earlier it may not have helped the demise of the Passenger Pigeon as the Act, when introduced, concerned the illegal trade in animals and I don't think the decline of this pigeon was caused by illegal trading.
 
vogelcommando said:
Martha - the very last one of her species was said to be 29 years old when she died Sept. 1 1914 but I found a note that she was hatched in 1888 which would her make "only" 26 at the time she died ( ? ).
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There does seem to be some confusion as to exactly how old "Martha" was when she died.

In an article Last Living Passenger Pigeon (published in New York Zoological Society Bulletin; July 1911) S. A. Stephan, General Manager Cincinnati Zoo, writes that the last representative of the species is about nineteen years old, which would make her about twenty-two years old at the time of her death.

Interestingly, Stephan comments that, until recently, she was housed with a male mourning dove for company; he then adds that the mourning dove was moved to an adjoining cage because some people had difficulty distinguishing between the passenger pigeon and the mourning dove.
 
Tim May said:
There does seem to be some confusion as to exactly how old "Martha" was when she died.

In an article Last Living Passenger Pigeon (published in New York Zoological Society Bulletin; July 1911) S. A. Stephan, General Manager Cincinnati Zoo, writes that the last representative of the species is about nineteen years old, which would make her about twenty-two years old at the time of her death.

Interestingly, Stephan comments that, until recently, she was housed with a male mourning dove for company; he then adds that the mourning dove was moved to an adjoining cage because some people had difficulty distinguishing between the passenger pigeon and the mourning dove.
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We who spend time at zoos know that some people have difficulty distinguishing between an elephant and a rhino. No helping them.
 
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