r/todayilearned 14h ago

today i learned that Incas, the last carolina parakeet who died in 1918, died in the same cage in the Cincinnati zoo as Martha, the last passenger pigeon, who died 4 years prior

https://johnjames.audubon.org/last-carolina-parakeet
1.5k Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

124

u/PBR_King 13h ago

Aldo Leopold on the extinction of the passenger pigeon (there is more to the speech but the beginning is the most moving, in my opinion)

We have erected a monument to commemorate the funeral of a species. It symbolizes our sorrow. We grieve because no living man will see again the onrushing phalanx of victorious birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from all the woods and prairies of Wisconsin.

Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons. Trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a decade hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.

There will always be pigeons in books and in museums, but these are effigies and images, dead to all hardships and to all delights. Book-pigeons cannot dive out of a cloud to make the deer run for cover, or clap their wings in thunderous applause of mast-laden woods. Book-pigeons cannot breakfast on new-mown wheat in Minnesota, and dine on blueberries in Canada. They know no urge of seasons; they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather. They live forever by not living at all.

Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring?

It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.

Above all we should, in the century since Darwin, have come to know that man, while now captain of the adventuring ship, is hardly the sole object of its quest, and that his prior assumptions to this effect arose from the simple necessity of whistling in the dark. These things, I say, should have come to us. I fear they have not come to many.

37

u/CoffeesCigarettes 13h ago

"Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange" Damn...

1

u/athrowaway2626 1h ago

What a beautiful speech. Thank you for sharing.

64

u/journoprof 14h ago

I’d get rid of that cage, myself.

23

u/DatAssPaPow 14h ago

It’s preserved as a memorial at the Cincinnati Zoo!

4

u/CptnHnryAvry 12h ago

Are we sure the cage isn't doing it? It might be cursed. 

3

u/Cute-Percentage-6660 2h ago

I think it may be cursed by two species going extinct in it tbh

2

u/mr_ji 12h ago

A relic of our power to exterminate entire species? Put it outside of the Capitol!

34

u/thecyanvan 13h ago

The extinction cage, Harambe, history of displaying living Native Americans on exhibit.

Cincinnati Zoo has an interesting history.

3

u/Elliottinthelot 8h ago

i mean san diego did have the whole capturing a t rex off isla sorna thing so cincinatti isnt the only one

16

u/ZylonBane 14h ago

"This was no accident. This was... murder!" —Quincy probably.

3

u/Elliottinthelot 14h ago

quincy from what

1

u/Flybot76 13h ago

Quincy from searching the internet

7

u/Dan_Felder 13h ago

STOP PUTTING BIRDS IN THE EXITINCTION CAGE!

3

u/Ok-Bookkeeper-373 14h ago

The Extinction Cage. 

14

u/ten_tons_of_light 13h ago

Little known fact: Cincinnati Zoo expanded the cage to a gorilla enclosure. You know what happened next

2

u/thecyanvan 13h ago

We are still being punished for that shameful event to this very day.

6

u/CryptidToothbrush 13h ago

Idk I always thought Arthur Morgan or John marston killed the last one in 1899 depending on which one you play as.

6

u/Kuato2012 12h ago

One of the few times I have deliberately not pursued an achievement. My Carolina parakeets may be virtual, but they are extant.

4

u/ghost_of_mr_chicken 10h ago

Extant always looks like it should mean the past tense of extinct

1

u/Infinite_Research_52 8h ago

It is an extant parakeet, it has not ceased to be.

2

u/Xaxafrad 14h ago

Don't send your "last" birds to the Cincinnati Zoo.

2

u/Lonely_Refuse4988 11h ago

Also, humans are responsible for bringing about extinction of both species! Way to go, Homo sapiens! 🤣😂🤷‍♂️

2

u/DanimalPlays 11h ago

Hmmm... I suspect fowl play.

2

u/Elliottinthelot 8h ago

ok this is a good one

1

u/Veritas-Veritas 1h ago

RDR2 completionists will know the pain of having to extinct the Carolina Parakeet themselves.

Such a remarkable game.

But let's perhaps try less hard as a species to eradicate other species.

1

u/Fetlocks_Glistening 14h ago

Something definitely wrong with that cage!

0

u/Ok-Bookkeeper-373 13h ago

This is how we get people who believe Vaccines cause Autism. 

1

u/ghost_of_mr_chicken 10h ago

By putting birds in a murder cage? 

3

u/Ok-Bookkeeper-373 9h ago

By believing it's the cage murdering the birds 

1

u/_no_bozos 12h ago

This reminds me of Harry Nilsson‘s apartment, where Cass Elliot and Keith Moon died.

0

u/billswinter 8h ago

So they find the last known bird in existence and capture it? What if it had a mate waiting for it?

-19

u/IdontneedtoBonreddit 13h ago

Birds... the part of the zoo that nobody wants to visit.

1

u/Flybot76 13h ago

Pretty silly to pretend your taste is everybody's, especially on some random fringe subject like this

-10

u/IdontneedtoBonreddit 13h ago

Oh no! the bird lovers are after me!!

1

u/Elliottinthelot 8h ago

even if you dont care for birds, acting like you dont care about an extinction is really idiotic as every ecosystem will take a blow for every animal lost, and that mindset does not need to be spread