In the Pyrenees, the mountain range separating France from Spain, Basque hunters are gathering palombes, or wood pigeons, as the birds migrate over the mountains to winter range. The Basque hunt them for food, but also to sell to restaurants and markets.
It’s a fall tradition, according to a story in the New York Times. The birds are hunted with shotguns, but are also captured with large nets. As the birds fly over the mountains they are hazed in the direction of the nets by hunters in raised platforms who throw large wooden paddles at the birds, forcing them to fly low to the ground where they become ensnared in the nets.
There’s even a mountain restaurant that has its own net system to capture wood pigeons to sell to diners.
This kind of market hunting was once widespread in the U.S. Market hunting is considered one of the main causes of the extinction of the passenger pigeon in the late 1800s. The pigeons are thought to have been the most numerous bird in North America at one point, and they were thought of as cheap and easy meat.
Market hunting alone didn’t drive the birds to extinction, but probably worked hand in hand with habitat loss. In the passenger pigeon’s case it was woodlands cleared for farming. Eventually, the massive flocks that were somehow necessary for the bird’s survival dropped below levels that were sustainable, and the species blinked out.
The last confirmed passenger pigeon killed in the wild was in 1900. Captive birds hung on until 1914, when Martha, believed to be the last passenger pigeon, passed away in the Cincinnati Zoo.
Today we make a distinction between our market hunting past and the fair chase hunting ethic that is a central tenet of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. No one is making a living shooting birds all morning so restaurants will have wild game to offer diners in the evening, and some market hunters once did. Instead, we limit hunters to methods of take we’ve deemed fair, and have established bag limits intended to be sustainable.
The idea is that there won’t be any more passenger pigeons.
Market hunting, or maybe I should say market fishing, is still alive and well in the Flathead. There is that commercial fishery for Lake Superior whitefish on the river, and the way fishing contests are being used on the lake to suppress lake trout in a way simulates the impact of a commercial fishing operation. Since lake trout are non-native, and are considered a threat to bull trout, we’re actually encouraging non-sustainable harvest.
With the spread of the Eurasian collared dove across most of the U.S. there might again be a place for market hunting for birds in the U.S. These invasive non-natives have moved into much of the Northern Rockies and setting hunters on the birds might be a good way to keep their numbers in check.
For this to work, however, pigeon meat would have to again become fashionable with American diners. Eating pigeon was once far more common and you’ll find squab recipes in old cookbooks. The meat is dark and gamey and other than dove hunters in the southern states, few eat them today.
I haven’t hunted dove in years, since I lived in Arizona. From a sporting standpoint dove hunting is hard to beat. When the birds come in fast and furious you can empty a box of shells in moments. You might not hit many, but you’ll have fun with all the missing.
But then you’re left to deal with the birds, and I never did develop a taste for dove. So I stuck with birds I like to eat.
Those nets the Basque palombe hunters use are carefully regulated, by the way. The number is limited to ensure the take is sustainable. It’s market hunting without the unlimited market that led to the passenger pigeon’s demise.