THE GREAT PASSENGER PIGEON COMEBACK
1860
Passenger Pigeons are the most abundant bird on earth – numbering 3-5 billion
1902
Last wild pigeon killed: a wake up call to change western civilization’s relationship with nature. No species is inexhaustible.
2032
New Life?
We’re working to hatch the first new pigeons by the 2030’s
Making the Passenger Pigeon
The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback began in 2012 with a clear vision: to recreate this species would demonstrate the potential of genomic intervention for de-extinction and conservation success while helping to restore the ecology of North America’s eastern forests. There’s just one catch: the historic passenger pigeon can’t be brought back to life. While we can’t resurrect the passenger pigeon, the gene sequences of long-dead museum specimens hold the key to restoring its ecological legacy vicariously through its closest living relative, the North American band-tailed pigeon. By writing passenger pigeon genes into the band-tailed pigeon genome we plan to give rise to a new population that looks, acts, and functions in forest habitats like the original passenger pigeon.
The science that makes de-extinction possible
Three technologies emerged shortly after the turn of the millennium that turned the idea of passenger pigeon de-extinction from science fiction to a realizable goal.
- Next Generation Genomics
- CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing Systems
- Germline Transmission Reproductive Technology
De-extinction demands major innovation for all of these tools. Revive & Restore’s partners are pushing those innovations forward.
Long Term Restoration
While we aim to recreate the birds in the short term for breeding and continued research in controlled facilities, for any long-term reintroductions in the wild , we will need to work with traditional conservation organizations. Breeding will take many years before repopulation in the wild can begin - affording time to plan a safe and responsible restoration that benefits people and the environment.
Our effort will replicate the same proven methods of every effort that has successfully reintroduced species from zoos and breeding centers to the wild - from preconditioning regimes to thorough monitoring of birds in the wild. It takes many stakeholders and community involvement to achieve rewilding success of this kind.
In advance of reproducing new passenger pigeons, we are launching the first ecological research with partners in Wisconsin that will provide vital foundational science to planning an effective restoration strategy as well as simultaneously benefit current forestry management practices so humans can be better stewards of our woodlands while we wait for new passenger pigeons to resume their ecosystem engineering role.
Revive & Restore is dedicated to consultation, engagement, and building genuine partnerships with private, corporate, tribal, and government forest landowners and other stakeholders to safely and responsibly restore new passenger pigeons to North America’s eastern woodlands.
Why the Passenger Pigeon? Saving Eastern America’s Forest Biodiversity
The Passenger Pigeon is a model species for de-extinction because, thanks to extensive historical records, its ecological role can be thoroughly researched and reproduced to successfully restore to the wild. De-extinct passenger pigeons will play a crucial role conserving the woodland biodiversity of the eastern United States.
Like many forest ecosystems, North America’s Eastern forests rely on disturbances, like storms and fires, as an integral factor in regenerating forest cycles. Regular, periodic, mild to moderate disturbances are a positive element in forest ecology. Widespread, asynchronized disturbances produce a patchwork landscape of different regenerative stages – known as successional stages.
Large dense flocks of Passenger Pigeons were a significant driver of forest disturbances for tens of thousands of years. In the last century, owing to fire suppression and the loss of the pigeons, significant disturbances have been reduced to sporadic weather events and logging activities, reducing the healthy patchwork of successional stages and leaving populations of many native species in decline.
Today, forest conservationists work to induce controlled disturbances. Their work yields local successes for restoring plant and animal species, but human-labor is hard to scale up to the needs of the full forest biome. By restoring abundant and densely social flocks of new Passenger Pigeons to eastern North America, we can restore a consistent and significant disturbance factor to perpetuate cycles of regeneration. This will achieve the widely shared forest management goals to sustain forest biodiversity and improve productivity, from nutrient transport and carbon cycling to supporting greater abundances of species.
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"The extinction of the passenger pigeon is a tragedy of human avarice, but that doesn't have to be the end of their story. As we rewrite their genome back into being, we are writing a future chapter - one of ecological restoration, cultural reclamation, and human redemption."
Ben Novak
Lead Scientist, Revive & Restore
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Together, we can reverse extinction.
Paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Tim Hough; Illustration by Matt Chinworth; Photographs by Ben Novak.
