Saturday, May 18, 2013

Passenger Pigeons Again...

Another little sample from my evolving proposal:
 
After the Ice
... I will draw on contemporary scholarship from Pielou to Paul Martin to paint a picture of the late glacial world – one with little place for the passenger pigeon as a major ecological actor. One keystone will be Australian ecologist Tim Flannery’s (The Eternal Frontier) hypothesis that the North American continent, by virtue of its shape, weather, and geology, has never had a stable environment, especially since the last glaciation.

3 comments:

Retrieverman said...

Buffon actually believed that because the North American (and also South American) climates were so unstable and so extreme that all our animals were degenerated European ones. Buffon also thought that humans would degenerate over here, too, which I guess is pretty arguable!

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was a critique of Buffon.

I really enjoyed Jefferson's work because I have spent a lot of time-- well my whole life- in some of the areas he wrote about in there. It's just where I am situated he was writing about a sort of distant wilderness quite different from his subtropical paradise east of the Blue Ridge.

Anonymous said...

Two thoughts regarding the passenger pigeon.

1. To what extent did hawk and falcon predation play a role it it's demise? Obviously, when there were billions of pigeons, predation meant nothing to the pigeon population. But once their numbers had been decimated, and hunting still continued, is it possible that a relatively large accipiter and falcon population circa 1880/1890 time might have become a relatively large cause of decline, in particular in nesting season?

2. To what extent has the decline of the passenger pigeon helped cause lyme disease to become a major health problem?

The lyme disease vector needs several things to be right for it to be widespread. Lots of deer (that is true now, wasn't always so), and lots of deer mice. When there were so many passenger pigeons, and so many chestnut trees (1/4 of eastern forests by one account), there must have been fewer oaks and especially fewer acorns (a major food of the passenger pigeon). With far fewer acorns, there would have been fewer deer mice. Fewer deer mice, fewer hosts of the lyme disease vector.

This is conjecture, obviously. Any thoughts?

Tom G said...

Two thoughts regarding the passenger pigeon.

1. To what extent did hawk and falcon predation play a role it it's demise? Obviously, when there were billions of pigeons, predation meant nothing to the pigeon population. But once their numbers had been decimated, and hunting still continued, is it possible that a relatively large accipiter and falcon population circa 1880/1890 time might have become a relatively large cause of decline, in particular in nesting season?

2. To what extent has the decline of the passenger pigeon helped cause lyme disease to become a major health problem?

The lyme disease vector needs several things to be right for it to be widespread. Lots of deer (that is true now, wasn't always so), and lots of deer mice. When there were so many passenger pigeons, and so many chestnut trees (1/4 of eastern forests by one account), there must have been fewer oaks and especially fewer acorns (a major food of the passenger pigeon). With far fewer acorns, there would have been fewer deer mice. Fewer deer mice, fewer hosts of the lyme disease vector.

This is conjecture, obviously. Any thoughts?