Carolina Parakeet
Carolina Parakeet: Removal of a Menace
The
only parrot native to continental North America north of Mexico, the
extinct Carolina Parakeet was a grackle-sized gregarious bird, mostly
green with a yellow head and orange cheeks.
The Carolina Parakeet inhabited deciduous forests and forest edges in the eastern United States as far north as the Great Lakes region, as well as wooded river bottoms of the Great Plains as far west as Nebraska. It nested in tree cavities and ate the fruits and seeds of many trees and other plants, such as thistles and cockleburs, as shown in this painting.
Outside of the breeding season the parakeet formed large, noisy
flocks that fed on cultivated fruit, tore apart apples to get at the
seeds, and ate corn and other grain crops. It was therefore considered
a serious agricultural pest and was slaughtered in huge numbers by
wrathful farmers. This killing, combined with forest destruction
throughout the bird's range, and hunting for its bright feathers to be
used in the millinery trade, caused the Carolina Parakeet to begin
declining in the 1800s. The bird was rarely reported outside Florida
after 1860, and was considered extinct by the 1920s.
Numbered on this painting by John James Audubon are males (1 and 2),
female (3), and immature (4). From Birds of North America, Volume 4,
1861.