I have read similar accounts of the passenger pigeon and trust them to be mostly truthful, at least relative to what we can hope to see in the present day. Howe

I have read similar accounts of the passenger pigeon and trust them to be mostly truthful, at least relative to what we can hope to see in the present day. However, as you suggest, the 50b number represents bird populations under crisis and does not represent their pre-Industrial levels, or even last Century’s.