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The problem with the Passenger Pigeon is that it was very common everywhere, and its behavior came to rely on this fact. An individual will leave its flock and
by cjensen 10y ago
The problem with the Passenger Pigeon is that it was very common everywhere, and its behavior came to rely on this fact. An individual will leave its flock and just assume it can find a new flock. Once the population level dropped below a critical threshold, it was doomed.
The Rusty Blackbird has much the same problem, and the fear is that it may have now dropped below its threshold.
- panglott 10y agoWell, their propensity to flock together and strategy of predator satiation made them extremely vulnerable to commercial hunting. It also looks like they suffered from the hunting equivalent of "panic logging": as the population collapsed, the commercial hunters reliant on them struggled to be the last hunter standing, rather than find another line of business before they went extinct. http://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-passenger-pigeon-went-extinct http://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-passenger-... The same thing nearly happened to the bison; there were less than 300 individuals left in 1900, mostly preserved as private property by a few individuals who wanted to save them from extinction. The Yosemite herd was an exception, 23 individuals than managed to hide out in Yellowstone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#Resurgence_of_the_bison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#Resurgence_of_th...
- antisthenes 10y ago> The problem with the Passenger Pigeon is that it was very common everywhere, and its behavior came to rely on this fact. An individual will leave its flock and just assume it can find a new flock. Once the population level dropped below a critical threshold, it was doomed. An interesting thought exercise is to presume this is written about the Homo Sapiens at some point in the distant future by a neutral 3rd party observer.