"On a Monument to the Pigeon

In Leopold's article On a Monument to the Pigeon, I noticed how the author effectively uses Pathos to describe the extinction of the passenger pigeon. In the opening paragraphs he uses powerful imagery to describe how an "on rushing phalanx of victorious birds" went from thriving to "living forever by not living at all". I feel as though he chooses this imagery to evoke a sense of guilt in the audience since at the time this essay was written there were still people who were alive to see the birds. In regards to the question of how much hunting is too much, I believe that any hunting that threatens the sustainability of a population is too much. For example, passenger pigeons at one time flew in flocks of close to one million birds, yet they were hunted in such great numbers that the population could not keep up and they were hunted to extinction. I particularly find the authors description of animal/human relation ship interesting. He states that "Men are only fellow voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution" yet for some reason humans have taken it upon themselves to be dominant over other species and determine their outcome. For modern readers I feel as though this essay will not have the original intended  effect, but will still send a message that it is wrong for humanity to directly determine the fate of other species.