Carolina Parakeet
(Conuropsis carolinensis)
In ecology, there is a concept known as shifting baseline syndrome. It describes how people forget, or never knew, what nature used to be like, and instead accept the conditions they grew up with as “normal,” or their baseline. As each generation experiences a more depleted environment, the idea of what’s normal gradually shifts.
An example comes from our perception of parrots. If someone mentioned seeing a large, noisy flock of 300 parrots, your mind might jump to the Amazon, the Congo, or the rainforests of Southeast Asia. But what if the answer was your own backyard? Today the idea of wild parrots in Pennsylvania sounds absurd, yet when the region was first settled, sightings of native parrots wouldn’t have been unusual at all, it would have just been part of the everyday landscape.
The Carolina Parakeet was one of only three species of parrots found in the continental United States and, by far, the world’s most northerly parrot species. It could be found from Upstate New York south to Florida and as far west as Colorado. It was a smaller parrot species and, in fact, a species of conure, being a very close relative of the sun and nanday conures. It preferred to live and nest in old-growth forests along river and wetlands where it could find an abundance of its preferred foods, seeds, nuts, and fruits.
Unfortunately, several factors contributed to the species’ extinction. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, women’s fashion saw a craze for feathered hats, and the Carolina Parakeet, one of the most colorful birds in North America, became a prime target. In addition to being hunted for its plumage, it was considered an agricultural pest because it raided orchards and vineyards, leading farmers to shoot them to protect crops. However, the greatest impact likely came from widespread deforestation. The species depended on old-growth forests, and as those forests were cleared, it lost more and more of its habitat.
The species’ final stronghold was Florida, and by 1860, sightings outside the state had become rare. The birds persisted there until the turn of the century, but in 1904 the last confirmed wild individual was shot and killed. The final member of the species was a male named Incas, who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. He died in 1918, one year after his mate Lady Jane, and, in a cruel irony, in the same enclosure where Martha, the last passenger pigeon, had died just four years earlier. Although unconfirmed sightings continued for years after Incas’ death, the American Ornithologists’ Society officially declared the Carolina Parakeet extinct in 1939.