doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Super-predators?

Stan;
100% on that last post.
As to the passenger pigeons my dad was born in 1910 & he well remembers the Chestnut Blight wiping out the chestnuts. I don't recall him mentioning having ever seen a flight of passenger pigeons. As I recall they were long gone by the time he was born, much less could remember.

According to a Sept 12, 1926 NYT article, the chestnut blight was believed to have been brought into Nassau County, Long Island in the late 1800's by chestnut trees imported from Japan where the fungus originated. The Japanese trees were resistant. The fungus was first noted in 1904 on an American Chestnut at the NY Botanical Gardens.
http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmac...972862077258563

Stan, with all due respect, and I truly mean it, you know of course that while you believe the above statement to be true (belief is at the core of any faith) there are many, many people who don't share your particular belief and the certainty you have about why the earth is here and our place in it. Competing beliefs, if you will. And many would view your statement as a suggestion we should abdicate responsibility for that which we have done. i.e. Abandon our ability to reason.

Just as I have respect for your faith, isn't it reasonable you have respect for the faith of others when discussing a subject that concerns and affects us all. IMHO, the health of our planet and the species that live on it and sustain our lives, are too important a subject to abandon simply to faith alone. Observation, logic and reason must be employed.

Now having said that, please note, I'm not a PETA type, nor a vegan, nor a silly green activist who places emotional response above logical, empirical information about cause and effect.

Canvasback,

I think you know from some our previous discussions in Misfires that I am a "believer". I stated what I know in my heart to be true. If you want to state what you believe to be true about this matter you are free to do so. I respect, and would defend, your right to have those opinions and to state them. We can discuss this by private message if you prefer, but I said nothing that disrespects any other faith.

It seems to me that I am not the one who is being too sensitive.

SRH

I actually thought your change in tone was because of the public pressure farmer's receive over insecticide spraying.

That one is extremely plausible, as was the overall harvest of nut-bearing hardwoods that occurred previous to the blight. Classic American furniture used walnut and oak very extensively. These were also factors in Turkey decline in many habitats as well, but turkeys were also hunted extensively, often by shooting them off their roosts.

I heard an author interviewed (not Bodio) about the PP extinction. According to him,the telegraph and railroad helped the decline. When the migrating birds showed up in a locale, word got out by telegraph and the markethunters showed up en masse, loaded the birds on the train and moved on to the next concentration.

Passenger pigeons were gone decades before the bulk of American Chestnuts were killed off. The last known specimen died in a zoo in 1914. Most of the large chestnut trees were dead by the early 1950's, but I ate some of the nuts from small survivors while grouse hunting a couple years ago. They still sprout and grow and bear nuts for a few years before the bark becomes fissured and they become susceptible to the blight. They also continue to send up shoots from the still living root systems of dead trees. Several years ago, I read about some large apparently blight resistant American Chestnuts that were found growing in Michigan. There was a breeding program to attempt to reintroduce them.

They were huge trees, and apparently fairly rot resistant. When I was in college in Central Pennsylvania and hunted in the Allegheny Mountains there, I sometimes found the huge moss covered trunks of fallen American Chestnuts that had not yet rotted away. Butt ends were up to 10-12 feet in diameter, and considering the length of the remaining trunk, they had to be well over 100 feet tall. When I find a living one now, they are seldom more than 15 feet tall, but can produce a lot of nuts. They are very tasty, much better than the Chinese chestnuts grown and sold today.

I'd like to find one last remaining Passenger Pigeon to see what they taste like. Those Market Hunters must have went after them for good reason.

'Bout like spotted owl...Geo

Throughout the mountains of north Georgia, American chestnuts still sprout saplings from ancient roots, reach a certain height and ultimately die from the blight. A small stand of mature American chestnuts flourish near Pine Mountain, Georgia, and were discovered in the last decade. They are being studied to determine the why and how of their survival.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901548.html