Zoology Collection - Passenger Pigeon Specimen

Gone for a Century

Great migratory flocks of Passenger Pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) once filled the skies of North America. But hunting and habitat-loss led to a slow – and then precipitous – decline throughout the 19th century. The last known Passenger Pigeon in Nova Scotia was recorded in 1869. And the last in the world, named “Martha”, after Martha Washington, died in a Cincinatti zoo on September 1, 1914. Our specimen represents the first Canadian record of the Passenger Pigeon.