At one time, passenger pigeons accounted for an estimated 20 to 40 percent of all land birds of North America. They flew in vast flocks numbering in the millions, sometimes eclipsing the sun for hours. As America’s human population grew and the demand for wild meat increased, hunters slaughtered the birds with great efficiency. 

On March 24th, 1900, a boy in Pike County, Ohio shot the last recorded wild passenger pigeon. Fourteen years later, under the watchful eyes of her keepers, the last passenger pigeon in human care, Martha, died in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo.