Passenger Pigeon Discussion

Passenger Pigeon discussion
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Passenger Pigeon discussion
Also known as wild pigeon, the passenger pigeon is an extinct North American bird. It went from being the most common bird in the 19th century to extinct in the early 20th century. Clutch size encompasses the eggs laid during a nesting period. The passenger pigeon has an average clutch size of 1.5 eggs and a pair of 50 laying 75eggs. The complexity of food gathering after the deforestation prolonged the maturation period while the species reached their carrying capacity. Competition for food places was increased especially during the nesting period that were not enough to sustain the population (Bortman, 2003).
Their habitat was mixed hardwood forests where the birds depended on the huge forests nesting during spring and for food and roots during winter. The birds flew out in large flocks in search of food and returned to their roosting area during the night. An estimate of their nesting area was reported as covering 850square miles having 136,000,000 birds in Wisconsin. Since the passenger pigeon was huge in numbers, it needed as much extent of forests for its existence that the early settlers made impossible by clearing the eastern forests for farmland. Due to their communal habitat, they were also hunted down by professional hunters who sold the birds in the city markets that sped up their extinction (Bortman, 2003).
Genetic ...