Bill Bryson, in his book, A Short Guide to Nearly Everything, writes that the now extinct Carolina parakeet was "arguably the most striking and beautiful bird ever to live in North America."I had heard about these wonderful birds (actually, parrots) before, but had never paid much attention to them until I came across that passage that describes their emerald green bodies with golden heads.
"[A]t its peak it existed in vast numbers, exceeded only by the passenger pigeon. But the Carolina parakeet was also considered a pest by farmers and easily hunted because it flocked tightly and had a peculiar habit of flying up at the sound of gunfire (as you would expect) , but then returning almost at once to check on fallen comrades."
Obviously, behavior like that can only hold for so long. The last wild Carolina parakeet died in Florida in 1904, while the last captive one died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918.
Unfortunately, that lowly last majestic bird, named Inca, was stuffed.
"And where would you go to see poor Inca now? Nobody knows," writes Bryson. "The zoo lost it."
The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Downtown Raleigh has a copy of an Audobon depiction of the bird (pictured). And Wikipedia alludes to stuffed specimens at the Raleigh museum and of one in Germany.
3 comments:
It's so sad that mankind has the collective ability to knowingly wipe a species from the face of the Earth. The NC Museum of Natural Science has a resident artist who has works on display by the first floor gallery waterfountains (and possibly elsewhere.) Recently one of the paintings was of the Carolina parakeet and I overheard 2 gentlemen having a conversation about a topic I pondered. Knowing that this species was wiped out in the last century (in large part because womens fashion of the time included flamboyantly festooned hats,) there should be lots of samples still in existence. If a diverse enough sampling of DNA could be collected, would it be possible to resurrect a population? The gentlemen talked about this but brought up the fact that even if this were possible, the habitat destruction would still probably be an insurmountable obsticle. Also many environmentalists worry that the ability to bring back an extinct species could make saving currently threatened creatures and habitats less of the very serious concern that it should be.
BTW, what I wrote came across wrong. I wrote: Unfortunately, that lowly last majestic bird, named Inca, was stuffed.
"And where would you go to see poor Inca now? Nobody knows," writes Bryson. "The zoo lost it."
What I meant was:
That lowly last majestic bird, named Inca, was stuffed.
Unfortunately, "where would you go to see poor Inca now? Nobody knows," writes Bryson. "The zoo lost it."
My bad.
Another concern *could* be that bringing back past species could threaten current ones that are thriving. Just a thought.
It's interesting to read about how the larger animals have been wiped out. Apparently there used to be a tree slot that could (theoretically) look in a second or third-floor window. And birds that were 12 feet high(that could fly).
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