The Carolina Parakeet
By Charlie • January 9, 2009 • 37 commentsMany of the readers who visit 10,000 Birds are members of the developed world (more than 50% are North American according to our stats), and it’s fairly easy and comforting when we think of endangered parrots to think ‘third world’ - that supposedly ‘third world’ issues like habitat change and rapidly increasing human populations etc are behind many of the problems afflicting the world’s parrots (remember that almost a third of all parrot species are threatened with extinction). It’s simply not true of course. Parrots are disappearing in so-called ‘first world’ countries like Australia (eg the Orange-bellied Parrot) and New Zealand (eg the Kea and Kakapo) for the same reasons, and it’s not so long ago that a now extinct parrot was common in the United States.
Officially declared extinct seventy years ago this year, the Carolina Parakeet Conuropsis carolensis was hunted in vast numbers by farmers and sportsmen, and though no-one knows for sure what finally finished off this lovely bird it is true to say that until Europeans arrived on America’s shores the idea that the Carolina Parakeet might one day be lost forever would not have even occurred to the peoples who lived within its range…
The Carolina Parakeet
Most birders in North America will probably be familiar with the rapid and shameful decline of what was probably the world’s most abundant landbird, the Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius (if you’d like a quick re-cap of how habitat destruction and uncontrolled hunting wiped out the Passenger Pigeon have a look at In Memory of Martha). How does that sorry tale fit into our ‘parrot month’ though? It fits because at the same time that the Passenger Pigeon was being shot into the history books, mainland North America was also losing its only native parrot - the lovely, yellow-headed Carolina Parakeet Conuropsis carolensis.
Up until the early part of the nineteenth-century the Carolina Parakeet was a locally abundant resident of mature sycamore-dominated bottomlands and bald cypress swamps of the southeastern and midwestern states. Two forms existed, divided by the Appalachian Mountains and differing slightly in plumage. Like nearly all parrots they nested in social colonies and used tree cavities, but there seems to be little information on their exact nesting habits. In fact considering that they were once commonly found in large flocks (sometimes containing three or four hundred birds), ranged over a vast area, and weren’t all that difficult to see (they apparently kept up a noisy chatter when feeding and gave a loud, screeching “qui…qui.qui..qui——–ih” in flight which was audible from some distance) very little seems to be known about them at all.
What is known is that massive deforestation throughout most of their range robbed them of food and nesting sites (which seriously impacted the Passenger Pigeon at the same time of course); their colourful feathers meant their bodies were in demand by milliners for decorating hats; they were kept widely as ‘pets’ by people without the knowledge, skill, or interest in breeding them (which might have at least meant that when numbers in the wild dropped there would have been a reservoir of birds in private collections); and crucially - and again much like the Passenger Pigeon - farmers and orchard owners detested them because they ate grain and ripped unripened fruits from fruit trees.
No one is totally sure what finally finished off the Carolina Parakeet (competition for nesting cavities with introduced honeybees has been suggested as one factor by the biologist Daniel McKinley who wrote extensively on the Carolina Parakeet between 1959 and 1985, and a viral epidemic picked up from poultry may have scorched through the last remaining birds) but undoubtedly huge numbers of Carolina Parakeets were shot by farmers and ‘planters’. Relatively approachable and usually found in flocks it was not difficult to kill large numbers very quickly. It didn’t help the long-term future of the Carolina Parakeet too that - as John James Audubon points out in the quotation below - the parrots would repeatedly circle and hover over injured members of their flock making them even easier targets:
Do not imagine, reader, that all these outrages are borne without severe retaliation on the part of the planters. So far from this, the Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge.
The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few hours, and have procured a basketful of these birds at a few shots, in order to make choice of good specimens for drawing the figures by which this species is represented in the plate now under your consideration. (From http://www.audubon.org)
“…until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition…”. Quite a statement.
Within a hundred years of ‘western civilisation’ charging headlong into the Carolina Parakeet it was in serious decline. In 1831 Audubon reported that “…I should think that along the Mississippi there are not now half the number that existed fifteen years ago“. The species was rarely reported outside its Florida stronghold after 1860, where - disgracefully - ’sportsmen’ followed it once it became rare enough to be of interest to them. The last confirmed sighting of wild Carolina Parakeets was of two flocks and a total of thirteen birds seen in April 1904 by Frank Chapman (a highly-regarded ornithologist and the man who began the Christmas Bird Counts in the US) on the northeastern side of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee.
But even Frank Chapman had been unable to resist the “sporting” urge in the past when it came to the little yellow-headed parrot, and a depressing excerpt from an article in the LA Times relates the following story:
Chapman was a pioneering ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History, and he devised the bird count as a way of sublimating the hunting urge and replacing it with the conservation urge, the counting urge—in short, the bird-watching urge. But Chapman was also a hunter, and he tells a story in his memoir about a shooting trip he made in Florida in 1897, when there were hardly any Carolina Parakeets left. Chapman learned about a small flock and, unable to resist gathering rare specimens, shot them. Looking at the bodies laid out before him, he vowed to shoot no more of the birds. But later that day, he stumbled on another small cluster and killed them too. “Good resolutions,” he wrote, “like many other things, are much easier to plan than to practice.”
Ironies abound in most tales of extinctions, and the final chapter of the Carolina Parakeet contains one more thick slice that you have to hope was planned to highlight ultimate loss (but I suspect wasn’t): the last Carolina Parakeet in captivity, a male called ‘Incas’, died in 1918 in the same aviary at the Cincinnati Zoo that Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, had died four years earlier.
A few sightings of mainland North America’s only endemic parrot species were claimed well into the 1930s, but these were not accepted as Carolina Parakeets by most respected ornithologists of the day (sightings were considered either to be feral parakeets of a different species or mis-identified Mourning Doves), and the lovely, beautifully-evolved Carolina Parakeet was finally and officially declared extinct by the American Ornithologist’s Union in 1939.
Carolina Parakeet, mounted specimen, Museum Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Germany. Date 2005. Author Fritz Geller-Grimm (photo available from Wikimedia)
According to all the online sources I can find there are about 720 skins and 16 skeletons of Carolina Parakeets housed in museums around the world. Of the 49 supposed egg specimens Daniel McKinley accepted 20 as certainly and 7 as probably correctly assigned to this species. 5 eggs controversially attributed to this species that were collected in Florida on April 30, 1927 (FSM 87234 - 3 eggs - and 89434 - 2 eggs) are not accepted as valid by McKinley based on their small size and early date of collection, but molecular analysis could possibly determine whether these are in fact eggs of Carolina Parakeets.
So a few skins, a few skeletons, and a few eggs, are all that remains of a once very common, very beautiful parrot. Will the Carolina Parakeet be the last species of parrot to become extinct? With at least 30 percent of the 140 parrot species found in the Western Hemisphere alone now threatened with extinction that doesn’t seem very likely…
For more information:
‘The Carolina Parakeet: Glimpses of a Vanished Bird’, Noel F. R. Snyder, Princeton University Press, 2004, 153 pages, hardcover.
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/JFO/v048n01/p0025-p0037.pdf - “Eggs of the Carolina Parakeet: a preliminary review”, Daniel McKinley
www.usatoday.com/tech/science/genetics/2004-11-08-parakeet-dna_x.htm
So sad. 720 skins, 16 skeletons,32 eggs and a rather wonderful audubon painting isn’t much of a legacy. That said I can’t help but wonder if somewhere in those skins, skeletons and eggs a little DNA may not lie waiting for a clever researcher…..
[...] repeatedly circle and hover over injured members of their flock making them even easier targets. http://10000birds.com/the-carolina-parakeet.htm – Posted to http://forestpolicyresearch.org via gmail to posterous and also to [...]
This is a great post, Charlie, as usual!
I read the LA Times article some months ago, and found myself deeply saddened when I realized that even great conservationists, such as F. Chapman, have found themselves fighting the “hunter” inside them. That is just scary, or maybe, only human. I can only hope that we can learn from such experiences. The key to conservation is education… this is a story to be told. Good work!
Another resource for information on the Carolina Parakeet is the book “Hope is the Thing With Feathers” by Christopher Cokinos. I bought a hardcover copy of this book years ago. The good news is that is will be (re-?) released in paperback this May.
Hey just asking but is there any carolina parakeet sightings today also there was a sighting in 1937 and video was taken of the 3 carolina parakeets but ive never actually seen the video does anyone have the video if so could you tell me.
@ANONYMOUS: The bird is extinct. There is no video (of real birds, but there is a “fake” video of them in the movie The New World).
Well, believe me or not, in early summer 1978, I saw three carolina parakeets in central Maryland, I was 20 years old and was, even then, hugely interested in conservation issues. When I saw these birds, I rushed to my home to get a camera, but when I cot back to the tree, they were gone. I called the Audubon Society and they registered this as an unconfirmed sighting. I have never since heard of another sighting, But I am convinced that this bird still exists.
I was reading an article about Ancient Trees in Garden & Gun this morning. The Article mentioned the extinct Carolina Parakeet. This took me back to a memory from a fishing trip with my grandfather around 1980-81. I was witness to a colony of these beautiful birds on the bank of the Lynches River, just outside of Johnsonville, SC. There were atleast 100 birds in the group. I remember my grandfather laughing at me when I asked if he would catch on for me. He did manuever the tiny carolina boat closer so I could get a good look. Telling this story to friends and family through the years has brought laughs and disbelief. I know what I saw was real.
@Morgan James and Daniel Spisak: It is nice to believe that the Carolina Parakeet has somehow survived but it is, sadly, extinct. Perhaps the species that you saw were similar escaped pets, but there has been no surviving Carolina Parakeets in nearly a century, and none in the wild for over a century.
Just got off the phone with my brother who lives in Columbia and a trip down the Lynches is set for this spring. Wish me luck. I am convinced about what I saw.
Stranger things have happened, I suppose. But I’m afraid the Carolina Parakeet has died out, very much like the Passenger Pigeon. Not by man directly. Sure, they were hunted and disturbed, but I feel some diease, most likely from domesticated birds (chickens, turkeys, etc.)is the true reason these birds are no longer with us. Just like our native chestnuts and elms, and now ash trees, a global economy is not kind to our native species.
The Carolina Parakeet is not extinct. In May of 1995 I almost caught one that flew into a friends kitchen window. It flopped around on his porch roof until it fell into his yard. We ran out the back door and it was sitting on his fence. I looked up and roughly 25 other parakeets were flying in a perfect circle waiting for this bird to rejoin the flock. I took my shirt off and threw it over the stunned bird on his fence but it just barely escaped. The bird rejoined the flock and they all flew off. This incident took place in Philadelphia.
I also believe I have seen parakeets another time in Fairmount Park. Just before dark some parakeets were circling one area of the park. All of a sudden they rapidly flew into a hollow Sycamore Tree.
Kevin, what you would have seen were Monk Parakeets, not Carolinas which are sadly very much extinct. Have a look at http://10000birds.com/the-monk-parakeet.htm
In my opinion only a color blind person could mistake Monk Parakeets for Caronlina Parakeets. Sorry I’m not color blind.
@Kevin: Well, sadly, you are mistaken about Carolina Parakeets still existing.
Somehow, I think a flock of “roughly 25″ of a bird that had been extinct for nearly a century in a major metropolitan area might have been documented by someone other than you.
“Somehow, I think a flock of “roughly 25? of a bird that had been extinct for nearly a century in a major metropolitan area might have been documented by someone other than you.”
They would of reported that to the US Department of presummed extinct animals?
Look at how you reacted to people reporting sightings now. Do you honestly think any person that would of reported such a thing would of been taken seriously enough to have your sighting documented? Less than 100 years later people are still seeing these birds but yet still no one is taking sightings seriously enough to look for themselves.
Kevin.
Actually, I apologise and admit you are absolutely right: we’re not really in a position to judge you or your sighting, and without seeing your birds no-one can say for 100% certainty what you did or didn’t see.
However, from our experience (which is quite extensive), combined with the experience of thousands and thousands of birders who have looked for Carolina Parakeets since they were last officially recorded, it does seem highly unlikely that a flock of Carolina Parakeets should exist in Philadelphia - a city far to the north of the core Florida range where the species was virtually confined by the middle of the nineteenth century.
Carolinas were (according to written reports) birds of the countryside: on the other hand Monk Parakeets in North America are almost totally found in flocks in urban settings. If you are experienced with seeing Monk Parakeets regularly then you have every right to be annoyed by my suggestion - but you don’t say in your mail whether you are familiar with the species or not, merely that you have seen a bird that was declared extinct in 1939. Perhaps you can understand why I suggested Monks in such a situation.
Kevin, I would be absolutely delighted if what you saw turn out to be Carolina Parakeets. I would treasure the fact that the ‘bombshell’ was dropped on 10,000 Birds and rue the fact that I wasn’t more supportive of your initial sightings. Every bone in my body says that it’s more than extremely unlikely you saw a flock of Carolina Paraketes, but I wasn’t there, didn’t see your birds, and don’t know you.
If you see the birds again and manage to take a photo your name will be synonymous with one of THE great ornithological discoveries of the era and I wish you good luck. If you don’t then please understand it is not enough just to claim sightings of an officially extinct bird - you will be met with the same scepticism and suggestions wherever and whoever you mail.
I will be the first to congratulate you when that photo is published, Kevin, but until then I (and my colleagues) will remain of the opinion that the Carolina Parakeet is extinct. True, you can’t prove a negative, but without conclusive proof that positively affirms the continuing existence of this species then the whole birding world will be of the same opinion as well.
Regards
Charlie
No problem Charlie. I really do understand your position as well. I hope my posts are taken as an angry rant by an unstable person. Just looking to debate my case and make people aware that they could still be out there. I’m sure other people have seen them but dismiss them as escaped pets or just forget about the experience altogether.
I have seen Monk Parakeets and I am somewhat familair with them. Do you think you would be able to visually tell the difference between a Monk Parakeet and a Carolina Parakeet?
I do not live in the Philadelphia area anymore but do occasionally travel down that way. These days I always have a camcorder with me just incase I see any extinct or unusual animals.
It is really a shame they are extinct. Looks to have been quite a beautiful bird.
Consider this the Ivory Billed woodpecker was presumed extinct
for more than 60 years and recently rediscovered in 2004 .
Before the rediscovery there were sightings in the southern states
and were discounted but later proved right. Its possible that
the Carolina Parakeet could still be alive. Morgan Jones you said
you had a sighting in central Maryland,I live in Baltimore County
which is central MD and would like to know the location of the sighting
Thanks. DANIEL SPISAK- I think you might find this interesting there
was a sighting by U.S Army soldier during WW2 he was on a train in South Carolina and saw a Carolina Parakeet outside his window and that
was 1944! He was told by a southern born soldier that they were common in this part of South Carolina!. Good luck on your trip to find them!
@Mark B: Unfortunately, the jury is still out on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s existence. The lack of a photo or video after six years of intensive effort does not bode well.
Carolina Parakeets were known to be a gregarious and obvious species. If they were around it would be very easy to document them. They are sadly extinct.
Hi Corey,
Anything is possible
Hi! Avid birdwatcher for several years now. Have never been able to find the Monk Parrots in Rehobeth DE (though have a lead on another location other than Lake Dr. that I plan to check this weekend.), so I am definitely interested in the location of the sighting in Maryland. I also live in Balto. Co. Thanks for any info.
The Carolina Parakeet is very much alive around the Ashley River basin of SC. I’ve seen them in my yard as well as my former childhood neighborhood for over 30 years. I’ve also seen them in large groups of over twent or more. Usually, I would see a single parakeet or three at a time and enjoyed our acorns from our live oak tree. I also watched them build a nest in a palmetto tree across from my home.
Gregory: Judging by this thread there do seem to be a number of people who believe the Carolina Parakeet to still exist. I have to state that our position is that the species is regrettably extinct, but we can’t disprove your claims of course. All three of us here would be delighted to be proved wrong, and if you would be good enough to provide photographs of these birds we would most certainly like to share them with the world, as this would be quite a tremendous discovery. Thanks.
I always enjoy a good challenge. I will return to the tree I witnessed them nesting in and try and get some good quality photo’s. I am pretty sure I remember the exact location of this tree and although its been a very long time I expect the tree will still be there.
I imagine like most animals these birds would have the instinctive nature to return to the place of there birth to reproduce the next generation. I am curious if I do return to this tree and look inside would I be able to find past evidence of them nesting in it for example feathers, egg shells and who knows what else. Would evidence like this be worth looking for or would it not help to validate the claims of sightings?
I just now took a closer look at some of the other postings and one
thing I’ve observed that is consistent with my own sightings is that the the Carolina Parakeet is often seen or travels in a small flock or group of three birds.
I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to believe these birds still exist. The South Carolina Dept. of Resources (SCDNR) does not acknowledge that Black Panthers exist in the state even though there are a number of videos on the net from SC. I’ve never seen one myself, however, I have a number of friends who have seen these cats. One thing that I have seen is many paw prints which are about the size of my hand. I think most people are so caught up in their day to day lives and are simply oblivious to their surroundings or they simply do not know about the Carolina Parakeet.
Here’s one of several videos of a black panther in SC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgzrgHDyzX0
Kevin: You’ve raised an extremely interesting question. If you were to go back to the nest hole and take egg shells or feathers would be you be guilty of a wildlife crime if the items proved to be from Carolina Parakeets as they are officially extinct and presumably are not covered by any of the existing regulations? And if they do prove to be from Carolina Parakeets they would have to be listed immediately as Endangered Species and the rues would change again, so if you’d kept any of the items could yiu be charged retrospectively? I’m not up on US law to knwo the answer, but I’d love to know!
@Gregory: No one is claiming panthers are extinct though, just that they do not occur in SC, so you are comparing apples and oranges. I do find it highly unlikely that black panthers exist in SC and did not find that particular video convincing.
@Charlie: I don’t think there would be any issue with Kevin grabbing evidence of Carolina Parakeets still existing. If he scared them from their nest though, that would be a disaster! That is, of course, if they still existed, which they don’t.
I attended my Bar convention on Kiawah Island this weekend at a hotel called The Sanctuary. I stopped by an art gallery inside the hotel and began to talk to an older lady who was also the the owner. Anyway, there were Audubon prints of the Carolina Parakeet around the Hotel and I told the lady about my past sightings. She stated that she had also seen the birds on a number of occasions and that she had last seen the Carolina Parakeets about three years ago. I asked her about the location of the sightings and it happened to be across the river from where I used to live. When I got home, I googled “carolina parakeets” and “sightings” and found this webpage.
Anyway, I’m glad that there are people out there that are also enthusiastic about birds and wildlife as I am. This is a great website.
I have carefully considered all of the legal consequences I could face but I think it should be more of a crime to do nothing. It would be a real shame if these birds were still hanging in there and we just did nothing to give them better odds.
I am not sure how things are going in other state but Penn’s Woods are looking pretty sparse now a days.
To be honest I am more concerned what reaction the ornothological community would have if I did find feathers, egg shells, etc. in the tree.
Would sightings be taken seriously?
Or would it be dismissed as a elabarate hoax?
I would be willing to bet that it would be dismissed as a hoax or even worse front page story on one of those horrible tabloids.
Hi Kevin
I think that the reaction would be - too put it very mildly - extreme shock (as would be the reaction from us here at 10,000 Birds if I’m honest). I suppose IF it were proved by DNA testing that the shells/feathers etc came from Carolina Parakeets most people’s reactions would be that it was a hoax, but how would you have got parts from a bird that is officially extinct? Tests would soon prove whether the items were old or fresh. If old then it’s a hoax, they would have been stolen from a collection or museum, and you’d have gone to a lot of trouble for no good reason whatsoever; if fresh then your name goes down in ornithological history and I hope you remember 10,000 Birds when the newspapers come for your story waving wads of cash!
Like I say, Kevin, our position here is that the species is regrettably extinct, but that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t like to see your quest succeed and learn that this beautiful parakeet is still alive. Good luck to you finding the proof.
Hi Corey,
According to the Cornell Lab of Orinthlogy,the Ivory Billed
Woodpecker is extremely rare and exclusive in the southeast U.S.
Correction on that report on that Carolina Parakeet sighting was
in southern North Carolina in 1944. He sighted up to 15 birds in
a remote area of that track near Tabor City,
I really hope everyone is right, cause I would LOVE to find out that the Carolina Parakeet is still alive and kicking. I personally belive that it’s probably ferral Monk PArakeets but there is always hope. Plus, if Kevin were right that would be even cooler, cause I live near REading, PA and I would love to see them here…on top of them actually still exsisting.
I’m wondering if some Carolina Parakeet sightings could actually be sightings of escaped sun conures (or feral populations in the warmer parts of the country)? Sun conures and Carolina parakeets look remarkably alike (except the beak of the Sun is black and the Carolina is beige) to the untrained eye, such as myself. I had a sun conure a few years back but my old roommate accidentally let it escape. Sun conures certainly do look more like Carolina parakeets than feral Monk/Quaker parrots that are occasionally seen around here and in a very mild winter it might be possible for a Sun conure to survive. Just a thought I wanted to throw out there.