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passenger pigeon. But the clearing of the northern hardwood forests for 

 agriculture concentrated the nesting colonies and the activities of the 

 netters. Steller's sea cow was butchered to extinction by Russian seal 

 hunters before the American Revolution. The great auk, which became 

 extinct in 1844, was slaughtered on its nesting grounds by whalers for its 

 eggs, plumage, and oil. All of these animals gathered in dense breeding 

 colonies that made their killing easy. All were destroyed by unregulated 

 commercialism long before there was more than rudimentary public 

 sentiment for wildlife conservation. 



The Badlands bighorn sheep, Merriam's elk, and eastern elk were 

 decimated by meat-seeking settlers, prospectors, and market hunters 

 before 1910. All occupied restricted and vulnerable habitats, and all 

 suffered from competition with livestock and agriculture. State and 

 federal wildlife agencies have introduced closely related subspecies of 

 bighorn and elk to the original range of the first two animals. Most of the 

 range of the eastern elk has been taken over by agriculture, but elk of 

 closely related subspecies have been restored to Virginia and Michigan. 



Modern sport hunting, as now regulated, has no relationship to the 

 thoughtless commercial exploitation of wildlife of the past. The vast 

 majority of the birds and mammals on the endangered list occupy highly 

 specialized habitats. Some were not abundant even in early times. 

 Kirtland's warbler, a tiny migratory bird that nests only in Michigan, 

 must have jackpines between 5 and 18 feet high to nest successfully. 

 Historically, this habitat was created by naturally occurring forest fires. 

 But foresters in their efforts to develop commercial timber excluded fire 



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