The heath hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido) was another casualty of colonial settlement. This eastern subspecies of the greater prairie chicken, a grouse‑like bird, was native to forest edges, grassland and heath in portions of the Northeast, from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania and New Jersey (Greenway 1967). Pursued by market hunters, these birds became a staple food for colonists. Heath hens were so common in Massachusetts in colonial times that Governor Winthrop ordered his servants not to have them served more often than a few times a week (Greenway 1967). By 1830, the last mainland Massachusetts heath hen was shot in the western part of the state. In New York State, a 1791 law banned hunting of these birds during spring and summer, but the law was flouted, and market hunting on Long Island resulted in its extinction there by 1844 (Greenway 1967). Overhunting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania killed off the last birds in these states by the 1860s. The last population of these birds survived on Martha's Vineyard island off the Massachusetts coast and, although protected from hunting, fire and predation gradually eliminated them by 1932 (Greenway 1967).
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Posts
2 comments:
My first experience with the Heath Hen was an old mounted bird in a display case in a biology storeroom. It looked like a pheasant but it was uniformly brown and had feathers sticking out from it's neck. "What is that?" I asked and my teacher told me that was a Heath Hen that had been found on the coastal heaths and open forest of the NY/NJ area.
So for years I labored under the belief that Heath Hens were a unique species of bird totally extinct. Imagine my surprise to find that the Heath Hen was a prairie chicken or pinnated grouse and that the eastern variety at most was a subspecies and probably only a race or color variety. Only a few specimens exist that can be proven to be "heath hen". The former curator(Roland Bauer) of the Cornell University bird study skin collection told me that he felt there was no difference between the heath hen and the prairie chicken and that he had to refuse specimens offered as heath hens because there was no way to tell them apart. A few proven specimens of heath hens from Martha's Vineyard cannot be assumed represenative of the whole eastern population. DNA analysis at this point is futile because not enough proven heath hens are avilable.
Bottom line...the heath hen is not extinct...but the prairie chicken is EXTIRPATED from the east. Instead of playing the name game with species, subspecies, race etc, we should simply restore extirpated wildlife on a species level wherever we have habitat.
Dave and I have communicated off the blog and I am with him on restoring the Prairie Chicken to the East Coast where suitable habitat exists...........The same way that the there is only one Cougar in North America........and it should be reintroduced in the Eastern woodlands.................so should the prairie chicken flap its wings again in our open east coast forests and coastal heaths......thank you Dave for your astute and informed commentary.......Rick
Post a Comment