What Fowls for Fowlers?

[Stumpkiller]

I was reading Rabble in Arms by Kenneth Roberts and the following passage brought a lightbulb . . .

Joseph started a fire: the others made camp: Doc Means took a dozen eels from the canoe, scoured each one with a handfull of ashes, chopped them into five-inch sections, skewered them on ramrods and hung them before the fire - and then we had a piece of luck. There was a scrabbling and clapping in the elms behind us, as though a whirlwind had struck them.

Cap Huff pounded on his keg. "Pigeons!" he bawled. "Pie! Pigeon ie! Pidgeon soup! Get your guns!"

The western sky was alive with pigeons, millions of them: an endless cloud, hovering and whirling as wet snow-flakes swirl in a gust of wind. They fluttered into the elms by the thousands, as if sucked into insatiable maws. From the trees came crashings, as branches, overloaded by the weight of the pigeons, broke and fell. At such times billowing clouds of birds puffed from the foliage, only to vanish again amont the leaves. There seemed to be no limit to the number the trees would hold."

We forget that 230 years ago [strike]carrier[/strike] passenger pigeons were common in gigantic flocks and that peppering a tree or flock would bring down several.

In another passage of the same book (dreaming about food stored at his father's house):

. . . smoked goose breasts, hams, smoked eels, dried apples, dried corn, salted codfish, pickled tinker mackerel, bags of onions and potatoes, racks of squashes, jars of brandied peaches, barrels of corned beef, cucumbers in brine, tubs of pigeons, plover and partridge breasts packed in melted fat, so they can be eaten when fresh meat is scarce in the winter.

 

[Skychief]

Interesting Stumpkiller, but....what lightbulb went off?

 

[paulvallandigham]

These were Passenger pigeons. Carrier Pigeons are birds trained to return to a specific location, so that they can carry messages back to that source or host, from some distant place.

While hunters and hunting continue to be "Blamed" for the extinction of the passenger pigeon, as are the American buffalo, its highly doubtful that there were enough hunters, or powder and shot to have killed off the millions of pigeons that are described to have existed, considering the incredibly high birth rate of pigeons. More likely is the thesis that the pigeon was killed off by some virus, or bacterial infection, long before medical science evolved enough to even understand that these are sources of many diseases.

The Buffalo contracted many diseases from the cattle that broke free from wagon trains, or were lost in storms, that carried diseases that cattle have immunities to, but which Buffalo don't.

Dr. Sam Fadala did an extraordinary bit of research with the aid of many Grad Students, years ago now, to account for how much powder, lead, and cartridges went west. Then he used that number, multiplied by a factor, and then reduced all the estimates of the size of the Buffalo herds, in half, using the lowest estimates available. He then assumed that each shot fired of a gun that went west killed a buffalo( ie. no missed shot, no other animals killed, no Indians shot, etc.) Factoring in the birth rate of buffalo, he still could not account for the annihilation of the vast herds of buffalo that existed in the 1830s, but were almost extinct, by the 1890s. And with the most generous numbers he could use, he could only account for less than 20% of the buffalo estimated to have been living on the Great Plains.

People forget that most of the western Great Plains were Territories, and not states, at the time, so that the U.S. Army was in charge of everyone and everything that went west of Missouri. The researchers reviewed all the extensive army Sutler's records of supplies sold, and delivered, and then factored in similar sales in jump off cities, like St. Louis, and St. Paul, as well as supplies to all the U.S. Army forts.

They even considered how long it would take buffalo hunters to drive wagons to Railroads to sell their hides, while they were not making any more money shooting more buffalo, and then considered the distances between various railroad lines during the period. It became obvious that the buffalo hunters simply could not have afforded to travel more than a couple of hundred miles from a given railroad, and the distance between Railroads were more than 600 miles in many places. It therefore was physically impossible for hunters to have killed all the buffalo. ( The fact that a small herd of buffalo was found in Colorado or Wyoming years after they were thought extinct, and became the breed stock for the current herds of buffalo is proof that hunters could not get to all the buffalo to kill them. And, even these few managed to not contract fatal diseases from grazing with cattle.)

 

[Jason Lewis]

actually paul i believe i've read that one of the preffered methods for harvesting the pigeons was netting over large groups of them once they were on the ground feeding and then proceeding to break their little necks. that way there was no expenditure of shot and powder and higher profits could be had. if memory serves, the mass markey hunting of passenger pigeons started when it bacame a popular cheap slave food.

attempts at conservation were made but were never seriously enforced but also at that point it was really too late. the birds are prolific polygamous breaders that's true, but they need large flocks to stimulate breeding. forced breeding didn't work on the few specimens in zoos and the wild population had already reached the tipping point and flock sizes were too small to promote breeding. the last birds slowly died off. the last one in captivity died i think in the late 19th century, but it was stuffed and is in storage at the smithsonian. it's name is martha after martha washington.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Interesting Stumpkiller, but....what lightbulb went off?

Why some find a long barrel fowler awkward with current game bird opportunities. It was a different playing field in the flintlock days.


I'm pretty sure Buffalo/American Bison are not in the "fowl" classification, however. ;-)

 

[Golfswithwolves]

Interesting Stumpkiller, but....what lightbulb went off?

Why some find a long barrel fowler awkward with current game bird opportunities. It was a different playing field in the flintlock days.


I'm pretty sure Buffalo/American Bison are not in the "fowl" classification, however. ;-)

Haven't you heard of Buffalo Wings?

 

[Stumpkiller]

I stand corrected . . . again. :rotf:

 

[paulvallandigham]

It was my understanding that pigeons hatched new clutches of eggs, 11 months out of the year, and only molt for one month. If that is true, one has to wonder just how much socialization was a factor in their mating! The word virus was unknown until long after they died off. I just wish people- including hunters and shooters-- would quit accepting, without question the claims that big bad Hunters killed off these species. We simply Can't know why they died off in such a short amount of time. :idunno: The science and knowledge to explore such causes simply didn't exist at the time. Because buffalo have survived, and we have been doing scientific testing and genetic testing on both the herds here in the USA, and another herd found up in Canada, we know more about what diseases don't affect buffalo, but kill cattle, and vice versa. :hmm: No where near the same level of research is being done on any species of pigeons. As to killing more pigeons with netting, rather than shooting into roost trees, I suspect its about even. :hatsoff:

 

[George]

actually paul i believe i've read that one of the preffered methods for harvesting the pigeons was netting over large groups of them once they were on the ground feeding and then proceeding to break their little necks.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
August 30, 1753
BOSTON, August 20.

The same Day there was so great a Flight of Pigeons in the neighbouring Towns, and such a prodigious Number brought to this Market the next Day, that they were sold from Three Shillings to Five Pence per Dozen, Old Tenor, and many of them that would not go off at any Rate, were thrown away. A curious Person, at the South End of the Town, counted upwards of 500 Horses that brought in Pidgeons, besides a vast Number that came over Charles Town Ferry. 'Tis said one man Catch 300 Dozen on Monday.

Spence

 

[Stumpkiller]

Nason and the others returned, each one dragging a slender pine from which all the branches, with the exception of a single row of butts protruding two feet from each trunk, had been trimmed. Thus the pines had the look of enormous combs.

We lashed these together in pairs, the butts of the branches mingled, so that we had two long ladders with irregular-spaced rungs. These we took to the pigeon-filled elms and stood against the trunks.

By now it was almost dark, and the trees were impenetrable silhouettes overhead; but when we loaded two muskets with small shot and fired into those black shadows, they seemed to explode above us. A million pigeons, disturbed by the noise and the shot, flapped blunderingly about, struggling for new resting places. Out of each tree tumbled twenty or thirty birds, dead or wounded - not nearly enough, considering those that needed them were numbered in the thousands.

But when the birds went back to the trees, they lit on the ladder rungs in such quantities that the timbers sagged. Reloading our muskets, we pointed them to rake the ladders.

 

[George]

Roberts had a very good and detailed imagination, and his books seem well researched. Actual eyewitness accounts are very similar.

From Blane, 1822:

"A few miles from Mr. Byrom’s. at a place called French Lick, is a very large pigeon roost. Several acres of timber are completely destroyed, the branches, even of the thickness of a man’s body, being torn off my the myriads of pigeons that settle on them. Indeed, the first time I saw a flight of those birds, I really thought that all the pigeons in the world had assembled together, to make one common emigration."

"In the neighbourhood of Fitch’s tavern, as there had been an abundance of mast (by which word is meant beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, &c.) the settlers had all congratulated themselves upon its being a plentiful year for their hogs; but one of those amazing flights of pigeons, of which I have already spoken, suddenly came into this part of the woods, and devoured not only all the mast that had fallen, but even that which remained half ripe upon the trees. Consequently numbers of the hogs were starved to death."

I've found that pass shooting doves is the only shooting-flying I have a chance at with my long smoothbore, and I'm sure they used them on the pigeons. There was other game in town, though. I've found references in 18th century of partridges or grouse, woodcocks and quail, and the dogs used to hunt them. I have often wondered if they really tried shooting quail over dogs with long-barreled fowlers. I'm dubious.

Spence

 

[paulab]

Paul...if the buffalo died of disease, have you EVER read an account of ANYBODY seeing thousands of dead buffalo lying about [that weren't skinned] that died of disease? I'll bet you can't.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Paul...if the buffalo died of disease, have you EVER read an account of ANYBODY seeing thousands of dead buffalo lying about [that weren't skinned] that died of disease? I'll bet you can't.

I don't believe that would be a valid assumption to point the fault at hunters. One disease blamed for the loss is brucelosis (sp?) a/k/a Bangs. It makes cows infertile. No calves, no future buff. The plains were vast and dying animals (they didn't all drop dead at the same time) would be scattered over a wide area, not always conventiently next to a trail or train track.

 

[Stumpkiller]

In 1873 over 750,000 hides were shipped on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad alone, and it is estimated that over 7.5 million buffalo were killed from 1872 to 1874. (General Pope and U.S. Indian Policy, p. 179)

http://www1.american.edu/TED/ice/buffalo.htm

c.1880 near Wichita. Buffalo bones destined for processing.

c. 1890 in Saskatchewan (skulls only!)

Though probably not with smoothbore fowlers!

 

[Rifleman1776]

Stump, I'm not denying that the killing by hunters wasn't a factor in reducing numbers of buff. The killings were, in fact, often wanton. Trains crossing the country would stop when buff herds were spotted just to let the male passengers get out and shoot buff for 'sport'. But, I have read accounts similar to what Paul posted. The buff survived despite widespread killing. They nearly went extinct because of disease. But, in this day and age, it is more popular to belive men with guns are at fault for everything.

 

[Jason Lewis]

i don't believe that hunters killed off the passenger pigeons per se. but i do believe that our ancestors reduced the population to the point that the birds could not mate, which is what actually led to thier demise. Turkeys, buffal, white tailed deer, ducks, etc all were market hunted and with human help all managed to obviously survive.

 

[Stumpkiller]

The turkey was gone in NY by the Civil War (as was the Eastern Elk). Turkey have since been reintroduced.

 

[Jason Lewis]

same for the midwest too. with the help of humans.

 

[luieb45]

I got this great book called "The Story of American Hunting and Firearms" for my birthday because a friend from our muzzleloading club had it out when we were all at his house for a fish fry this year. In one chapter it goes into all the detail about how they killed hundreds of birds everyday to sell in market out east which led to the almost extinction of wild game birds. It just amazes me how greedy they were back then :barf: :shake:

 

i don't believe that hunters killed off the passenger pigeons per se. but i do believe that our ancestors reduced the population to the point that the birds could not mate, which is what actually led to thier demise.

Well, that's the same thing isn't it? If you are responsible for reducing the numbers to where they can't breed, you have essentially caused their extinction.

That's like saying, "I didn't drown him, all I did was hold his head under water. The water drowned him".