She had lived long enough to recall the sunlit crowded blue skies she had once flown through now fading into a deep, empty pit of gray. She had lived amongst friendship compassion long enough to experience what loneliness meant. She had lived long enough to understand what creatures we humans are behind our complex brain and body of steel.

Growing up in 1870, I watched her and the others mature yearly, but it had only become a matter of time until she would be the last of her kind. And this beauty is nature as we know it: the Passenger Pigeon. By 1890, it was rare to see any large number of flocks - only a few thousand remained. It could be simply said that our friends had died in battle, but that would imply they had revolted. No, it’s much safer to say that they had been brought into a massacre, threatened by the most dangerous species of all: the human. With selfish desires for wealth, passenger pigeon hunting became an industry. I even knew of a man that made $60,000 from killing 3 million birds. But I ask, is the death of 3 million birds only worth $60,000?

Her reformed life in Cincinnati Zoo was different and artificial. Martha no longer flew among a flock the high skies to search for oak and beech trees, or even flew outside of the zoo for that matter. All that was assured that she wouldn't hear the tormenting BANG! BANG! resulting in birds dropping like flies, ever again. Caged and alone, she later died on September 1, 1914, marking the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. And that was the last I saw of Martha.