Ectopistes migratorius: Gone

This is from a book I found for a £5 earlier in the week. Published in 1904, Ectopistes migratorius was already probably already beyond recovery as a species.

It is a species that can teach us many things. It may have survived into the first decade of the 20th century, sightings were all unconfirmed though. However, some forward thinking Americans tried to protect it in the middle of the 19th century, introducing a bill in Ohio to protect it. But a select committee of the Senate reported the following:
"Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced."

In the book that I found, the author reflects "... it barely survives to refute the adage, "In union there is strength."

Mark Avery has a book out about the species - and Tristan Reid is running a thousand miles in memory of Martha, the last of the species and to help save Martha's cousin from being driven to extinction here.