This is a short clip about Martha the last Pigeon from a Smithsonian Film entitled Our Vanishing Lands.
It has come to our attention that the Smithsonian Institute has decided to permanently close the Birds of the World Hall. We find this to be appalling. Many of the birds including the extinct species shown there in beautiful dioramas are the only representations which we and future generations can see. Some represent beautiful birds which mankind has totally destroyed. Their public display should serve as a remembrance to all, how our actions can have irreversible affects on our planet.
When the Cincinnati Zoo sent Martha, the last member of the Passenger Pigeon to the Smithsonian to be displayed, it was not to have her kept off exhibit for no one to see, in some dark closet, but rather to show what we had done to a species which numbered in the billions. To hide these beautiful creatures from us is, in effect, another way of saying it never happened.
I cannot imagine that the Smithsonian would want to be placed in the same group as those who decimated the live birds by removing them from those who would remember and honor the place they held in our country's history. We can only hope that an outcry against this action will halt and reverse their decision not to display these birds.
Please send a message expressing your displeasure of this action to the Smithsonian website at: http://www.si.edu/exbcent/start.htm
or send and email to mailto:presidentcircle@nmah.si.edu, be certain to entitle your email appropriately about bringing back Martha The Last Passenger!!
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