Animal

Carolina parakeet

Conuropsis carolinensis

Also known as: Conuropsis carolinensis

The only parrot native to the eastern United States — a bright green bird with a yellow head and orange face, ranging from New York to the Gulf Coast and as far west as Colorado. Common in old-growth bottomland forests, traveling in noisy social flocks, feeding on cocklebur seeds, fruits, and forest mast. Driven to extinction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by deforestation, hunting (for feathers, for crop protection, for the pet trade), and a loyalty trait that proved fatal: when one bird was shot, the rest of the flock returned to the fallen individual rather than fleeing, allowing hunters to kill entire flocks at a single stand. The last known wild bird was shot in Florida in 1904; the last captive individual, Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on February 21, 1918 — in the same cage where Martha, the last passenger pigeon, had died four years earlier.

What was

Carolina parakeets were the only parrots native to the eastern and central United States. Bright tropical-looking birds in temperate forests — green bodies, yellow heads, orange faces — they nested in tree cavities, traveled in flocks of dozens to hundreds, and ate fruits, seeds, and mast that other species could not access (including cocklebur seeds, which are toxic to most animals).

They lived from southern [[beacon-ny|New York]] and the [[great-lakes|Great Lakes]] south to the Gulf Coast and west into Colorado. Old-growth bottomland forests were their stronghold. They were noisy, conspicuous, and abundant in their range.

How it ended

Three pressures combined:

Deforestation — the bottomland old-growth forests they depended on were cleared for cotton and corn through the 19th century
Hunting — for crop protection (they were treated as pests on orchards), for feathers (the millinery trade), for the pet trade (they were popular cage birds)
The flock-loyalty trait — when a Carolina parakeet was shot, the rest of the flock circled back rather than flying away. Hunters killed entire flocks at a single stand. This single behavioral trait, useful in the species’ evolutionary context, was lethal under firearms

The species declined through the 19th century. The last large flock was reported in Florida in the 1890s. The last confirmed wild bird was killed in 1904. Incas, the last captive individual, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918, in the same cage where Martha had died.

What the loss means

The Carolina parakeet is the only North American parrot lost to extinction. Tropical-looking birds will not be flying through the bottomland forests of the Carolinas, the [[blue-ridge-mountains|southern Appalachians]], the [[batesville-ms|Mississippi]] Valley again. The forests still exist in fragments; the bird does not.

The extinction is also one of the clearest cases of how behavioral traits interact with technological change. The flock-loyalty that bonded the species under stone-age and earlier conditions became the trait that ended it under repeating firearms. Evolution does not anticipate.

Sources

A Feathered River Across the Sky, Joel Greenberg
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, Christopher Cokinos
Smithsonian and Cincinnati Zoo records on Incas

Rooted in life.

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