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The Extinct Carolina Parakeet
Edmund J. Sawyer Once abundant the beautifully colored Carolina Parakeets nested in tree hollows in large colonies in the cypress swamps in the South Atlantic and Gulf States. |
Gustav Mutzel They migrated North through the Eastern States as far as Pennsylvania and up the Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers to the Platte and regularly to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska. |
Charles R. Knight They were kept as pets. |
Chester A. Reed They were hunted for their feathers. |
Carolina Parakeet Conurus carolincusis Large noisy flocks invaded orchards destroying fruit for its seed and so they were slaughtered as agricultural pests. |
John James Audubon
The Parakeets became rare by the 1880s. Incas, a Carolina
Parakeet in the Cincinnati Zoo died in 1918. The last reported
sighting in the wild was a small flock Florida in 1920. It was
declared extinct by the American Ornithologists Union in 1939.
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