"On a Monument to the Pigeon" by Aldo Leopold

This article pays homage to a species of bird that was once so fruitful that they could cover they sky and block out the sun. In this article Leopold morns not only the death of one species but morns the extinction of all animals snuffed out by humanities greed and ignorance. Though this article does not address it the death of the last passenger pigeon, but I think it is worth mentioning; her name was Martha and she died when she was 26 after living her whole life in captivity. I think this showcases humanities greed in a different way. While humanity did hunt and decimate the population of passenger pigeon's they also kept some in captivity. The fact that they kept a few birds in captivity suggests that they kept the birds for their own personal enjoyment for as long as possible. Martha is currently stuffed and housed inside of the Smithsonian, showed off as a reminisce of a better time, but as Leopold says "Our grandfathers, who saw the glory of the fluttering hosts, were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are." That time was not better then this time, nor is this time better then that; the difference is that now we have the knowledge to see the shortcomings for the future. Had our ancestors had the ability to recognize the destruction they were causing, it might have impacted the way they were consuming the precious resource. Leopold however hints that even knowledge might not have the ability to save species and the environment for demise, because people don't want to acknowledge it. 

Leopold himself was one of the hunters, in his book The Sand County Almanac he talks about how he used to hunger for the destruction of the wolves because it would mean more deer for him. Then on a mountain in Montana he killed a wolf and watched the green fire die in its eyes and he realized that by killing the wolf he was killing the mountain. This is the same thing that happened with the passenger pigeon. People ate them at a staggering rate which when combined with deforestation caused them to be wiped out, which caused a backlash in every other part of the ecosystem that it was apart of. This brings us back to Andee's post where she questioned the necessity of meat.  Is it worth the environmental impact that is causes? We now have the ability to live without meat, and each person has to self identify if they want to eat it or not. Personally I do not consume meat, which saves the same amount of energy as driving a smart car for 2 years. This is a choice we all must make, do we learn for the passenger pigeons demise or do we continue to rocket toward environmental catastrophe.