On September 1, 1914, the passenger pigeon became extinct.

Passenger pigeons were the most numerous of all species of birds in the world and numbered from three to five billion, said scientists. Now, they're gone and man was responsible for this bird's extinction.

In contrast, today's pigeon species only number some 10.5 million.

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In their heyday in the 19^th century, passenger pigeons would fly together in enormous flocks, darkening the sky and blotting out the sun.

These flocks would migrate from forest to forest, foraging and searching for seeds and nuts. After they were done with one forest, they would usually head to another forest and not return to the previous one until they gave it enough time to grow.

Then, the Europeans came to North America. They began cutting down forests to make room for farmland. This was the beginning of the end for the passenger pigeons.

Soon after, the pigeons became a target for human hunters.

Animal predators also hunted the pigeons but didn't kill as many pigeons as humans did. In a puzzling evolutionary decision, the pigeons decided to stay within their endangered forests with its human predators instead of flying away to other forests.

Human hunters slaughtered the passenger pigeon en masse using nets, guns and toxic fumes. They would then sell these birds as a cheap source of protein, giving rise to the infamous pigeon pie.

The hunting continued until there was only one pigeon left. Her name was Martha Washington and she made her home in the Cincinnati Zoo.

For about 12 years, Martha lived as the only surviving passenger pigeon until she died one day of natural causes.

Her body was immediately frozen is now on display the Smithsonian Museum of National History, a monument to man's stupidity.

The story of the passenger pigeon is worth hearing again. The sad story of the once mighty passenger pigeon shows man's crazed ability to drive a other species to extinction.

The problem with predatory man continues to this day and threatens plants and animal species to the point of extinction at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times faster before man came along.

If the rate continues, we could be facing mass plant and animal extinctions by the end of the century.

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