There was once a bird in America so numerous it darkened the sky for days when it passed, and it was the cheapest meat in the country. Then, inside a single lifetime, every last one of them was gone.
The passenger pigeon. Three to five billion of them, the most abundant bird in North America, possibly in the world. Flocks a mile wide that took hours to fly over. And because there were so many, they were the meat of the poor, netted by the thousand, packed into barrels, and shipped by the railway carload into New York and the other growing cities to be sold for next to nothing.
It was free protein on a scale that is hard to even picture now. A working family fed itself on a bird that cost a few cents because the sky was full of them and always had been.
The railroad and the telegraph were what finished it. Hunters could now find a nesting site by wire and ship the slaughter to market by rail, and they did, year after year, faster than the birds could breed. The flocks thinned, then collapsed, then were simply gone. The last wild one was shot around 1900.
On the first of September 1914, a bird named Martha died alone in a cage at Cincinnati Zoo, and the most numerous species on the continent was extinct. They froze her in a block of ice and sent her to the Smithsonian.
From more birds than anyone could count to none at all, in about fifty years, because we treated something free and infinite as though it could never run out. The poor lost a meal. Everyone lost the bird. Nobody got either back.
There was once a bird in America so numerous it darkened the sky for days when it passed, and it was the cheapest meat in the country. Then, inside a single lifetime, every last one of them was gone.
The passenger pigeon. Three to five billion of them, the most abundant bird in North America, possibly in the world. Flocks a mile wide that took hours to fly over. And because there were so many, they were the meat of the poor, netted by the thousand, packed into barrels, and shipped by the railway carload into New York and the other growing cities to be sold for next to nothing.
It was free protein on a scale that is hard to even picture now. A working family fed itself on a bird that cost a few cents because the sky was full of them and always had been.
The railroad and the telegraph were what finished it. Hunters could now find a nesting site by wire and ship the slaughter to market by rail, and they did, year after year, faster than the birds could breed. The flocks thinned, then collapsed, then were simply gone. The last wild one was shot around 1900.
On the first of September 1914, a bird named Martha died alone in a cage at Cincinnati Zoo, and the most numerous species on the continent was extinct. They froze her in a block of ice and sent her to the Smithsonian.
From more birds than anyone could count to none at all, in about fifty years, because we treated something free and infinite as though it could never run out. The poor lost a meal. Everyone lost the bird. Nobody got either back.
There was once a bird in America so numerous it darkened the sky for days when it passed, and it was the cheapest meat in the country. Then, inside a single lifetime, every last one of them was gone.
The passenger pigeon. Three to five billion of them, the most abundant bird in North America, possibly in the world. Flocks a mile wide that took hours to fly over. And because there were so many, they were the meat of the poor, netted by the thousand, packed into barrels, and shipped by the railway carload into New York and the other growing cities to be sold for next to nothing.
It was free protein on a scale that is hard to even picture now. A working family fed itself on a bird that cost a few cents because the sky was full of them and always had been.
The railroad and the telegraph were what finished it. Hunters could now find a nesting site by wire and ship the slaughter to market by rail, and they did, year after year, faster than the birds could breed. The flocks thinned, then collapsed, then were simply gone. The last wild one was shot around 1900.
On the first of September 1914, a bird named Martha died alone in a cage at Cincinnati Zoo, and the most numerous species on the continent was extinct. They froze her in a block of ice and sent her to the Smithsonian.
From more birds than anyone could count to none at all, in about fifty years, because we treated something free and infinite as though it could never run out. The poor lost a meal. Everyone lost the bird. Nobody got either back.
Criticising Islam is within the British tradition of people
discussing the merits of religions, and I can scarcely believe that some faceless authoritarian should be allowed to punish a person for doing so
Should I expect to be punished for Life of Brian ?
Absolutely disgraceful
@Grownded@Faith_is_Works He seems to have picked up another demon at the temple and now he is all confused. Does this happen a lot? Do they have psyche wards in Utah for temple psychosis?
@Grownded@Faith_is_Works RESCUING the Victims of Mormonism is what they do. I dont live there just a supporter. In 20 years the LDS will be under 50 percent in Utah and the Tyranny will end. Hopefully.
@Grownded@Faith_is_Works Converting young adult women to the truth is hardly soliciting young girls. The LDS like the Romans are a Pagan Fertility Cult devoted to promoting breeding at all costs. The most Violent Sex Cult in American history is only a shadow of its evil past.
@Faith_is_Works Well you can do that in Scientology...just stop paying. In the Watchtower just stop going. Even the Moonies will let you quit. Its the Emotional cost you have to figure in. Theological cult is a different definition than a Sociological cult.