Carolina parakeets lived in the swamps and along rivers. They were once common in Indiana but are now gone not only from here but everywhere else. It became extinct in 1918. A Karl Bodmer painting depicts them in a sycamore tree near New Harmony in Posey County. “Mr. Bodmer sketched on the [Fox] island, where he saw the parakeets.” Prince Maximilian journal, 25 Oct. 1832.
Question in the Comments:
How did they go extinct? Did they go the way of the Passenger Pigeons?
Answer: No one knows for certain regarding the demise of Carolina parakeets. Other than unregulated hunting that commonly existed, two theories proposed include the introduction of non-native honeybees (they took over tree cavities used by the birds) and diseases introduced by imported fowl such as chickens. The species became extinct in 1918.
In May 1832, Prince Maximilian Alexander Philipp of Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867) left his home in Europe for an expedition to the United States. The prince was an avid naturalist and intended to follow the route of Lewis and Clark through the American West, accompanied by artist Karl Bodmer, who would make a visual record of the trip.
On his way westward, Maximilian arrived in New Harmony on October 19, 1832. Robert Owen’s utopian community had dissolved five years earlier, but the town still boasted famous social reformers, artists, and scientists—in particular, naturalists Thomas Say and Charles Alexandre Lesueur.
On his approach to the town, Maximilian noted his first sighting of persimmon trees, full of ripe fruit, and recorded that the forests of southern Indiana were full of parakeets (Carolina parakeets, now long extinct). The prince remained in New Harmony for nearly five months, conferring and working with Say and Lesueur.
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Source: Stephen Witte and Marsha Gallagher, eds., The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied, vols. 1 and 3 (2012)
1918, February 21 - the last Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States. It was found from southern New York and Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico, and lived in old forests along rivers. The Carolina Parakeet is believed to have died out because of a number of different threats. Habitat destruction was a large part since they were beneficial to farmers eating cocklburs, but were also hunted by some, their brightly covered feathers were used in womens hats, but the most likely cause was death due to poultry disease. From Carolina Parakeet on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
"What a colorful tropic scene! That *can't* be local to DC," you might think. "Bet I'll never see those during this year...
"What a colorful tropic scene! That *can't* be local to DC," you might think. "Bet I'll never see those during this year's Great (Global) Backyard Bird Count (16-19 February, 2018) ..." Up until the end of the 19th century, you'd have been wrong on the first thought, and for the past century you'd be right on the second. That's the Carolina Parakeet, and its range did once include the Washington, DC area; it went as far north as southern New England, and as far west as Colorado. By the middle of the 19th century, it was rare. The last verified sighting of one in the wild was in 1910. The last living specimen died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918 -- in the same cage in which Martha, the last passenger pigeon, had died four years before. That's why programs like that Backyard Bird Count are so important: to get some idea of what birds are where, and in what approximate numbers, so we can perhaps *do* something to prevent another bird from vanishing forever.
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. Copied from Carolina Parakeet: Removal of a “Menace” posted April 15, 2008 by The Cornell Lab at AllAboutBirds.org at Cornell University.
February 21, 1918: The last Carolina parakeet died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
The Carolina parakeet was a small green Neotropical parrot with a bright yellow head, reddish orange face and pale beak native to the eastern, midwest and plains states of the United States. It was the only indigenous parrot found in the American colonies.
John Parsons, a 23-year-old Virginian, captured much of the essence of pristine Indiana's wildness when he recorded his impressions of the Wabash River country in his diary A Tour through Indiana in 1840: The river rolled its silver current along the 'edge of the plain, which was besprinkled with wild flowers of every rich and varied tint, intermingled with tall grass that nodded in the passing breeze .... The forest rang continually with the songs of the birds and among them I noted particularly, because of their strangeness, the sandhill crane and the Carolina parroquet. The parroquets are beautiful birds, their plumage is green, except the neck, which is yellow, and the head is red. When flying, this bird utters a shrill but cheerful and pleasant note and the flash of its golden and green plumage in the sunlight is indescribably beautiful in its tropical suggestion. Copied from The Wildlife section in the essay called Perspective: The Indiana that Was by Marion T. Jackson published in the book The Natural Heritage of Indiana, copyright 1997, Indiana University Press and printed on the website The Inspiration for the Natural Heritage of Indiana Project.
![October 25, 1832 Karl Bodmer sketch on the [Fox] island painting](../../_images/indnr/1832-oct-25-carolina-parakeets-new-harmony.jpg)
