Passenger pigeon
Passenger pigeon specimen, Canadian Museum of History 995.26.1, IMG2009-0063-0014-Dm
Passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) could be counted by the billions in North America before the arrival of Europeans. By 1900, they were extinct in the wild mostly because of commercial hunting and lost habitat. This specimen was shot near Ottawa in 1884 by a naturalist and later stuffed for display. The last passenger pigeon died on September 1, 1914 in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.