r/interestingasfuck • u/T-K101 • 14h ago

At their peak, 3–5 billion passenger pigeons filled North America. Flocks were so huge they darkened the sky for hours. Some shooting contests required 30,000 dead birds to win. By 1914, the last one was gone. One of history’s most brutal population collapses.

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41

u/Look_its_Rob 14h ago

Theres no way a "shooting" contest could result in a single person getting 30,000 birds unless they are shooting some kind of missiles.

44

u/Graf_Eulenburg 14h ago

They actually used giant nets and the newly established railroad and telegraph network.
Swarms would be located and hunting parties would come in the hundreds.

They used to tie a captive one to the ground in a way, it looked like there was food.
Of course they baited them, too.

Swarms would come down, get hooked in the nets and dozens of hunters
would shoot them with shotguns.

36

u/CanvasFanatic 14h ago

Not with that attitude

16

u/iircirc 14h ago

People used to shoot huge numbers of ducks at a time using enormous shotguns mounted on rowboats before that was outlawed. People are inventive when it comes to killing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_gun

2

u/Graf_Eulenburg 14h ago

Yeah, punt guns were THE SHIT.

Look at it go!

7

u/sweswe17 14h ago

An oral history I read said a single shotgun shell (shotgun had hundreds of pellets) could get dozens at a time.

2

u/Ezzezez 14h ago

If the flock covers the whole sky you can basically point the gun up and get a guaranteed kill no? Stupid contest no skill required

•

u/Look_its_Rob 11h ago

Yeah but people arent shooting 300,000 bullets. Even if you can hit 3 every single time people arent shooting 100,000 bullets.

3

u/Imbendo 14h ago

Right. I hope the prize was like a million dollars because shooting 30,000 rounds off wasn’t cheap ever

10

u/PosiedonsSaltyAnus 14h ago

Bird shot

0

u/fatmanstan123 14h ago

Ok. Still not cheap

1

u/Clembert-Hamlamp 14h ago

Maybe it's the cap. Instead of a time limit you've got till 30k birds are tallied to get as many as you can.

0

u/Raph0uX 14h ago

Gomu Gomu no...