We are, it appears, living in an age of extinction. So, to echo Thoreau, we decided to go where we could confront the “essential fact” of extinction and see if we “could not learn what it had to teach.” What follows is partly a guide to where you can see extinct bird specimens in New England and partly a reflection on what these birds might teach.

We decided to see if we could find specimens of birds that had links to eastern North America, became extinct in the 19th and 20th centuries, and were on public display. Our list of seven species and one subspecies—with the likely year of extinction or last sighting—included Labrador Duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius, 1878), Heath Hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido, 1932), the curlew Numenius borealis (1963), Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis, 1844), Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius, 1914), Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis, 1939), Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis, 1944 in the United States, 1986 in Cuba), and Bachman’s Warbler (Vermivora bachmanii, 1988).

Regarding our list, the subspecies was the Heath Hen, which was an Atlantic Coast subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido). Also, we use the scientific name for the curlew N. borealis rather than the historical English name, because the latter is considered derogatory by many Arctic communities and an American Ornithological Society (AOS) committee has recommended changing the name (AOS 2023). In addition, we included the Ivory-billed Woodpecker although it has not yet been declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Recent reports—as yet unverified—raise the possibility that a remnant population may exist (cf. Latta et al. 2023).