T7ith Uncle San' s Naturalists 



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10-7-32 



and then says, "And wlien you are asl:ed uliat has beco.ie of the wild pigeons, figure 

 ■up the shipping "bills, and they will show wliat has "becone of t/.is, the grandest 

 game bird that ever cleft the air of any continent," 



The tales the old-timers tell of ho'.7 the pigeon killers butchered the wild 

 pigeons are both fascinating and terrible, 



Audubon describes one of these butcheries at a pigeon roost on the Green 

 River in Xentudty, 



Audubon arrived at the pigeon roost just before sunset. He found a great 

 many people at tr-e roost with horses and wagons, and guns and aminunition, wait- 

 ing for the pigeons to come back to the roost for the night. Some of the hunters 



had iron pots containing sulphur some had torches of pine many had poles 



the rest liat? 3-Jns. Two farmers had driven v^wards of 300 hogs to the roost to 

 fatten on the slaughtered pigeons left on the ground, 



TT-ien the pigeons came bade to the roost, Audubon says they sounded like a 

 "hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel." They 

 poured down into the roost out of the air like water over a gigantic waterfall. 

 The pole-ben 2ziod:ed the pigeons down by the thousands. Other hunters lighted 



the fires. The csxais spurted their deadly fire, but made no sound, their roar 



was droTCied out by the terrific din. The sight was wonderful as well as terri- 

 fying. 



The slaughter went on all night. Along toward daybreak, the hunters began 

 to pile the dead, dying, and mangled r-.igcons up in heaps until they had as many 

 as they wanted, Tlien, the farr.iers turned in the hogs to finish the pigeons left 

 on the ground. 



Stories like the one Audubon tells of the Kentucky butchery are not at all 

 musxial. You can find dozens and dozens of similar stories. The pigeon hunters 

 caught thousanc'- s ■a£)On thousands of the pigeons in nets. They set fire to the 

 trees to drive the young squabs out of the nests. They went to the roosts at 

 night and chopped down big trees to crush the pigeons perched on the limbs. They 

 put out poisoned bait. They sold live pigeons to sportsmen for trap-shooting. 

 They s-iipped carload after carload to the city markets for food. 



Even a bird such as the passenger pigeon a bii^ that numbered in the bil- 

 lions couldn't stand the strain of year-around sla\aghter, and the destruction 



of food supplies and breeding grounds. 



H. P, Sheldon, Game Conservation Officer of the Bureau of Biological Survey, 

 thinks tne story of the passenger pigeon would have been repeated rdth other 

 game birds if the State and Federal governments hadn't talcen steps to protect 

 them. 



Starting along about 1870, when the loassenger pigeon was passing out of e::- 

 istence, a nunoer of states began to enact laws to protect waterfowl. However, 

 Colonel SnelCon says the game roramissioners and other men interested in protect- 

 ing wild life realized the state laws were not adequate. Some of tlie states had 

 no laws at all to protect birds. Other states protected only a few kinds of birds 

 or only in certain localities or for only a short season. 



