Rev. Timothy Flint and his family descended the Ohio in 1816. At its lower end, Flint noted that his “…children contemplated with unsated curiosity the flocks of parroquets fluttering among the trees, when we came near the shore.” The parakeets that so fascinated Rev. Flint’s children were the now-extinct Carolina Parakeet. Flint also observed the birds occurred in large flocks, fed on sycamore fruits and a variety of other seeds and fruits, including those in pioneer orchards, and favored roosting in cavities in sycamores. He noted, “They have hooked, ivory bills, a splendid mixture of burnished gilding and green on their heads, and their bodies are a soft, and yet brilliant green. Their cry, as they are flying, is shrill and discordant.”
Another early Missouri traveler, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, wrote in 1819: “The parakeet is a beautiful bird; … its colours are green, yellow, and red, all bright colours, and it is a pleasing sight to see a flock of them suddenly wheel in the atmosphere, and light upon a tree; their gaudy colours are reflected in the sun with the brilliance of the rainbow…” Immature birds lacked the yellow and red on the head and neck.
Early travelers noted flocks of hundreds of parakeets along the Mississippi and lower Missouri rivers. A few travelers also noted the birds inland. In Missouri, parakeets occurred year-round in forested habitats—many accounts are from mid-winter when visibility is better. Several observers noted Carolina Parakeets fed extensively on the fruits of cockleburs, a hated weed in crop fields and something few other birds could tackle. Parakeets nested in hollow trees, laying 2 to 5 eggs, with the mode being 2.
Carolina parakeets remained quite common in Missouri through the 1850s. From then until the time of the Civil War, there are fewer accounts of the species, and most of these were from forests on the Missouri River. The last known specimen from Missouri dates from 1894 near Kansas City, and rare sightings occurred until the early 1900s—1905 in Stone County and 1912 in Jackson County.
The decline of Carolina Parakeets seems to have happened in the late 1800s throughout its extensive range in the eastern U. S., but small populations did persist in some locales. The extinction of the species happened somewhat suddenly in the early 20th century, with the last population persisting in Florida. The last specimen in a museum from this population dates to 1904 but reports of them continued into the 1920s. The last captive, a male named Incas, died February 21, 1918, at the Cincinnati Zoo.
The big mystery is the cause of the parakeet’s demise. Its decline coincided with deforestation, but suitable mature forests still survived. Unregulated hunters shot them for their decorative feathers and habit of eating fruit crops, but only in local situations. Some observers commented on their behavior of returning to flock members shot by hunters, allowing further killing. The pet trade accounted for loss of some individuals.
One hypothesis involves the preference by introduced honeybees for large tree cavities. Competition for cavities and cutting of “bee trees” by humans might have limited nest sites in some locales. Because the final demise of Carolina Parakeets happened so quickly, between 1880 and 1910, a disease of domesticated poultry could be involved. However, no other New World parrot is susceptible to such diseases at such a level. Many suspect if the species persisted until recent decades, the cause of its decline and the application of modern methods for recovering rare species could have saved it.
