1914-03-20a

On March 20, 1914, the Hamilton Herald carried an article announcing that the United States government was offering a reward of $2,500 to anyone who provide a healthy pair of passenger pigeons.

          It was noted that the offering of the reward was made “with little hope of ever facing the necessity of paying the money over.”¹

               ¹ “Made Sky Black : Citizen Recalls Great Flock of Wild Pigeons”

          Hamilton Herald.  March 20, 1914.

          The demise of passenger pigeons, commonly simply called “wild pigeons,” was on a scale of the near-extinction the buffalo.

By 1914, great changes in the natural environment in North America were all too present.

Many people still alive in 1914 could remember vividly the great flocks passenger pigeons. One such individual was a retired Hamilton contractor, William Woodhall, who told the Hamilton Herald reporter that in his diary, of 1859, he had recorded the passage of the gigantic flock of “wild pigeons’ flying from the southwest to the northeast over the city of Hamilton.

Woodhall had noted that the flock was a mile wide in spots, and took more than two hours to pass over the area. Local experts estimated the flock could have been as much as 100 miles long.

Other “old-timers” contacted by the Herald reporter remembered that memorable day when the huge flock passed over the city. They said that the flock was so big that its shadow blocked out the sunlight, requiring people to light their lamps during the midday.

The senior citizens also noted that part of the flock of wild pigeons passed by the top of the escarpment so closely that “people knocked them down with clubs by the dozen, and feasted gloriously on pigeon pot-pie for days afterwards.”¹

In September 1914, the last known passenger pigeon died in captivity.