Might as well start with the first, Geo.
"The Passenger Pigeon", by William Bates Mershon. Free to read online.
My father new him. Founding member of TU. Gunned right down the road from my house.
It wasn't sportsmen that ended PP's. It was the cutting of all of their habitat. Also, the second point I might add, is one of perspective.
We would like to think we do, but we have limited ability to conceptualize things bigger than ourselves. God, the Universe, and the number of PP's required to keep their population humming along. They probably needed millions to survive as a species, but millions of passenger pigeons necessary as a minimum was hard to comprehend. There looked to be plenty around. Such was the biology of the PP.
Fragile, fecund, and needing specific OLD GROWTH habitat. I can't imagine the volume of mast they needed to consume. The Chestnut blight guaranteed their end. The 400% Eastern US population growth, from 1860 to 1900, requiring furniture and packaging to create households, accelerated the cutting.
Lots of historical perspective on PP's out there.
Sometimes it reminds me of how a stone chip breaks a windshield when you turn the defrosters on. Unexpected destruction.
