The wandering pigeon is an example of human short-sightedness

The history of the disappearance of once numerous species of animals and birds has repeatedly emphasized the cruelty and shortsightedness of mankind. This is indicated by the extermination of a huge number of wandering pigeons, which were still the most numerous birds in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, not only in the American continent, but throughout the world.

The main habitat of this amazing bird was North America. The wandering pigeon got its name because of the habit of moving from place to place in search of food. Having eaten everything in one section, the flock was climbing into the sky, flying into another forest. Birds mainly fed on seeds of trees, acorns, nuts and chestnuts. They settled in huge colonies, numbering up to one billion individuals.

On one tree nestled up to a hundred pigeons. In each nest was only one egg, but the birds in one year could raise a few chicks. Their numbers were so huge that at the flights they shut themselves the sun, and from the flapping wings there was such a noise that laid the ears. The wandering pigeon had a fairly good speed, per minute flying one mile, that is, crossing the ocean and flying to Europe, he could only three days.

In the XIX century, the US government decided to exterminate this species of birds. As the pigeon's meat was edible, the hunters were immediately found. People came at night to the birds' habitats, chopped down trees, killing chicks and adults. They shot at the unfortunate of guns and pistols, even a stone thrown in a flock killed several pigeons at once.

The extinct bird was then sold in the markets for 1 cent for two carcasses. Their bodies were loaded into wagons and sent to big cities for sale, people salted pigeons, and then fed them pets, made fertilizers from them. In the period from 1860 to 1870, about one million individuals were exterminated. Then every year the wandering pigeon began to appear less and less often, the flocks were noticeably thin, but the bloodthirsty hunters did not stop it at all.

The last representative of this species was killed in 1899. The Americans at once woke up, realizing what they had done, but it was too late. The wandering pigeon was erased from the face of the Earth in just a few decades. The government promised a reward of one million dollars for the detected pair of birds, but all is in vain.

I do not want to blame myself for anyone, so various reasons for the disappearance of this species of birds have been invented. According to one of them, pigeons went to the North Pole, but, not having sustained severe conditions, perished. The second theory was that the remaining colony of birds traveled to Australia, but a terrible storm caught her in the way, so the whole flock drowned. Perhaps this species simply could not exist in small colonies, so it died.

Whatever it was, but the blame for the disappearance of wandering pigeons completely falls on the shoulders of a man. Extinct birds have become a vivid confirmation of greed, cruelty, bloodthirstiness and folly of people. A man could destroy the most numerous species of birds in such a short time and did not even notice on time that they are on the verge of extinction. If this goes on, then soon the planet will become deserted and dejected. We ourselves cut the branches on which we sit, and do not even notice it.