America's Former Parrot

credit: J.J. Audubon, Birds of America

America once had its own, native parrot.  When European settlers arrived in the 'New World' they were greeted by a gorgeous parakeet, the Carolina parakeet ( Conuropsis carolinensis).  Its gone now, the victim of mans intrusions upon the land.  You can only see what the beautiful bird looked like, by going to the Field Museam of Natural History and watching a stuffed specimen--admittedly not the same thing as seeing a flock of brightly colored, raucous parakeets in the wild. The last captive died in the Cincinatti Zoo in 1918 and declared extinct by 1939. The earliest reference to these parrots was in 1583 by British explorers; they were later scientifically described in 1731. They had a secret weapon, apparently. John Jay Audubon reported that cats died from eating them, and they were seen eating poison cocklebur seeds, loaded with enough toxins to kill a man.

The great naturalist and artist commented as early as 1832 on the disappearance of the parrots from their deciduous forest homes of the south as settlement moved from east to west. He wrote when the parrots landed on a farmer’s field that, “they present to the eye the same effect as if a brilliantly coloured carpet had been thrown over them.” Hunting also played a major role in the parakeets' decline since their bright feathers were prized for the haberdashery trade. The birds flocking behavior facilitated their mass slaughter. Sufficient nesting sites allowed the species to persist despite extinction pressures into the 20th century. However, the birds rapidly declined in number at that point, leading some researchers to conclude that disease transmitted from poultry was the final blow that ended their life on Earth.

Modern genetics has successfully modeled the Carolina parakeet's genome from specimens and bone fragments collected by scientists and stored in museums. What was needed to patch together a complete genome for the bird was a genetically close relative.  Researchers chose a living relative, the sun parakeet of South America. Scientists have determined that America's last parakeet diverged from its southern relatives about 3 million years ago, at the time the Isthmus of Panama appeared. The genetic record shows a robust development with no in breeding and possibly two subspecies--one located in the Midwest and one centered on Florida--so whatever killed the parakeets happened in a relatively short time. No natural selection process was involved. The Carolina parakeets demise resembles the end of the dodo and the great auk, both hunted to extinction.; The Midwest subspecies crashed first, extinct by 1913.

Scientists speculate that what happened to cause the final blow by man was the transmission of disease from his poultry farms.Carolina parakeets may have been attracted to farms by the cockleburs growing there as weeds. The parakeets came into contact with chickens, and picked up a poultry disease.  No signs of bird viruses in the Carolina parakeet have been found in the genes of birds studied.  Efforts to reconstruct--successfully--the parakeet's genome may offer some hope that another species eliminated by man, could be resurrected by him. The Carolina parakeet is a candidate for this scientific prestidigitation along with the thylacine, Yangtze river dolphin, and Xerces blue butterfly.

Knowing the entire genome is step towards this possibility.  But resurrection  may not be a good use of the immense time and effort involved. More needs to be known about the birds' habitat, behavior, and the primary cause of its extinction.  Five hundred or more protein producing genes would have to be reprogrammed from the sun parakeet model.  As one scientist put the proposition, “You spend tens of millions of dollars to get a few hundred Carolina parakeets, you let them out, and then they run into a chicken and all die. Enthusiasm should not overrun ethical considerations. Is not what the tragic story of Frankenstein taught us?