100th anniversary of the passenger pigeon extinction: Lessons for a complex and uncertain future

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the passenger pigeon's (Ectopistes migratorius) extinction. Our goal is to review the bird's abundance and extinction along with several valuable lessons. The tragic extinction of the passenger pigeon helped launch the modern conservation era, and it is a story providing a stark reminder of potential consequences of reactionary and ineffective management decision processes. Similar to the extinction of passenger pigeons, we suggest multiple complex and polarized issues provide modern examples of pending ecological challenges that are effectively being ignored. Using climate change as an example, it is just as easy for people today to ignore emerging environmental system changes as it was for people in the late 19th century to ignore the implications of their actions. Although we have successfully recovered many wildlife species in the past 100 years, we have important work ahead of us requiring a more comprehensive problem-solving paradigm if we are to have a meaningful effect. © 2014 The Wildlife Society.