Martha (passenger pigeon)
Martha († September 1, 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo , Ohio ) was the last living passenger pigeon , a so-called endling . She got her name in honor of the first American first lady , Martha Washington .
In 1857 an attempt was made to put the Ohio pigeons under protection. The state's Senate was of the opinion that pigeons were not threatened with extinction. So the pigeons were chased further until 1914, "Martha", was the only specimen of the species left.
After her death at the Cincinnati Zoo at the age of 29, Martha was frozen and sent to the Smithsonian Institute , where she was groomed and exhibited.
In her poem "The formerly most common bird in the world", the poet Silke Scheuermann commemorates the deceased Martha.
literature
- Dietmar Roberg: Martha, the last passenger pigeon . Publishing house of the authors, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88661-021-7 .
- Mark Avery : A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and its Relevance Today , Bloomsbury, London 2014, ISBN 978-1472906250
- Silke Scheuermann: The day when the seagulls sang in two voices. Poems. edition suhrkamp, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 978-3-518-12239-6
Individual evidence
- ^ Encyclopedia Smithsonian . Archived from the original on March 13, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 24, 2008.
- ↑ Silke Scheuermann: The day on which the seagulls sang in two voices. Poems. In: Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main (ed.): Edition suhrkamp . 1st edition. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 978-3-518-12239-6 , pp. 15 .
