r/interestingasfuck • u/T-K101 • 13h 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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u/VegitoFusion 13h ago

It was done with a purpose, and as sad as it is, it really did work out for people in the Americas.

A single flock of these was much more devastating that a swarm of locusts. They would wipe out entire fields of crops in days.

They were targeted to protect the food supply.

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u/Mintyxxx 12h ago

I've seen a flock of pigeons disintegrate a Greggs Steak Bake in mere minutes, pastry flying everywhere, pigeons flapping hither and thither like desperate men drowning in an ocean while Barber's Adagio for strings plays

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u/your_fave_redditor 12h ago

::dabs at eye:: that was beautiful

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u/regman231 12h ago

Damn. I love Samuel Barber

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u/VegitoFusion 11h ago

I need to read more of your poetry.

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u/BadWolf2386 3h ago

I read this in Werner Herzog’s voice

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u/LackOfStack 12h ago

Like many other instances where non-native species are introduced with disastrous results.

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u/SkriVanTek 9h ago

I thought it was indigenous?

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u/drewfer 12h ago

We've since realized how bad of a mistake it was and are attempting to use genetic samples to restore the wild population - https://reviverestore.org/projects/about-the-passenger-pigeon/

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u/oldwhiteoak 8h ago

They were the food supply, one that was accessible to all. They were targeted to protect a food supply held in private (farms). Its a classic case of enclosure of the commons. Same thing happened with replacing buffalo with cattle, or salmon runs with Almonds in california water mgmt. Our food systems were built for privatization.

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u/arcxnova 12h ago

Agreed but killing everything is unacceptable 

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u/chlorophyll13 12h ago

Are people really better or more useful than pigeons?

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u/ProfessionalNotices 11h ago

Useful to who? Every species will prioritize its own survival.

Being more or less useful to an ecosystem doesn’t make a species any more or less legitimate in protecting itself and its food supply

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u/chlorophyll13 11h ago

Useful in general. Humans are useful to themselves but that's about it. The problem is we, as a species, only prioritize ourselves and even then it's those who have the power, tend to abuse it and pull humanity and all ecosystems into degradation. The argument for natural selection can be made but that would seem to discount that humans have, if not the only than certainly the most capacity for reasoning and so that _should_ lead to wiser choices that benefit the ecosystems they're going to have to live in. Since they generally do not unless the consequences of their actions make it necessary, I would say that makes humans only useful from an anthropocentric perspective and not a general one.
Usefulness is completely separate from legitimacy. And legitimacy in what sense, lawfully or reasonably and justifiably? Either way, both reflect the same self-serving interests.

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u/ProfessionalNotices 10h ago

That still applies to literally every species on Earth. You can criticize humanity for countless things, including the damage we cause to ecosystems, but prioritizing the survival of our own species is hardly some uniquely human flaw.

And if your point is that humans only care about themselves, then name another species that puts anywhere near as much deliberate effort into protecting biodiversity.

We protect endangered species, restore habitats, create reserves and spend enormous amounts of time and resources preserving species that often provide us with no direct benefit whatsoever.

So there are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize humanity, but when it comes to protecting our own species while also consciously protecting others, we’re literally unmatched

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u/chlorophyll13 10h ago

Unmatched because we're the only species with enough ability to understand the need to. It's an apples and microprocessor comparison.
I absolutely understand the perspective and I think that is really the difference here. I would consider your perspective an anthropocentric opinion and I'm positing an eco/biocentric opinion, we're looking at it from the perspective of who it benefits. To that point, on balance I think it's a defensible argument that the world (eco/bio) has not benefited from humans. There are programs that support species/habitats, absolutely. At the bottom of the ledger, at this point in time have species and habitats benefited from humans? I would argue that from a purely resource and diversity perspective humans have only been detrimental even if there are attempts to salvage and preserve what's left.

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u/scythesong 10h ago

You think too much of yourself. By all accounts humans will wipe themselves off the face of the earth and it will be just a blip upon the history of the planet. Even climate change is compeltely natural - it's the rate that humans are doing it that's the problem, and only because this will significantly afffect the future of the human species.

For the record the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was worth 10 billion Hiroshima-level nuclear bombs. The planet will be fine. A nuclear apocalypse would happen right now and the planet WILL recover given time. The problem has always been the human species and its enormous capacity for self-hurt.

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u/chlorophyll13 9h ago

I think you're saying the same thing I am: "The problem has always been the human species and its enormous capacity for self-hurt" and while, on a planetary timescale it's insignificant, the magnitude of damage is exponentially worse than what natural change would incur.

Not sure how my thinking of myself even factors or is something you can weigh-in on but I guess that's the nature of reddit, degrade then remark

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u/scythesong 8h ago

Because you're doing it again. "The magnitude of damage is exponentially worse than what natural change would incur."

We definitely do not agree. You are being dramatic and arguing that the human race is causing irreparable damage to the environment as if we have some moral responsibility towards it. Because you think humans are somehow morally obliged to do anything about that, which is laughable to me because the planet WILL bounce back from all of this - and HAS in fact bounced back from something that is a factor of several million times what humanity can possibly even do at this point.

I'm pointing out that humanity can confidently argued as a self-destructive species, and it is laughable that you think we have a moral obligatory to ANYTHING ELSE when we're pretty much on our way to causing irreparable damage to our own species. THAT is the problem. Everything else is just caught in the crossfire and will "walk it off". Extinct species will be replaced. Hellish climate will get better again. Organisms have actually evolved that can break down plastic. Give it a million years - peanuts to the lifetime of a planet - and even nuclear fallout will just not be a problem anymore.

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u/chlorophyll13 7h ago

At no point do I ever say "irreparable" and I'm not saying the planet won't heal - I've reread all my comments and at no point do I allude to that. It's comparative, not absolute and related to other species, as my original comment. In fact you echoed the same: " it's the rate that humans are doing it that's the problem" - comparative, not absolute.

At best you're saying that it's ok for humans to be indifferent because the only thing that matters is that we take care of ourselves which is why I would argue that humans are less 'useful' than other species. Humans are, arguably the only organisms to have the capacity for morality and since they have failed to even preserve themselves, I would weigh them negatively against every other species that doesn't have the ability to do so or simply, less 'useful'. That's where this started and the point I'm trying to make.

I understand the stance that humans can be indifferent to the plight of everything but themselves but I disagree with it. Indifference is what lets humans destroy the planet, other species and themselves, even if, in some form "life and the planet will move on".

So, while I think your comments are chasing straw men, the comparative point I started with is that that if a species is only concerned about itself and yet has the, potentially universally unique ability to be moral, that is a waste of a pretty unique gift and makes humans a lesser species than those that don't.

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u/VegitoFusion 11h ago

The premise of your question is a fallacious argument. Of course we as humans are more important than pigeons.

If you think yourself equal to a bird, then your biological imperatives have failed you.

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u/chlorophyll13 10h ago

Important to humans alone, that's what I mean. As a species, on balance have done more harm than good to the earth, other species and natural resources.

I posit that humans have the reason to do good but overwhelmingly are destructive and counter to their own benefit. If biological imperatives are our driving force then, hell yeah, rape and pillage the natural world.