The Passenger Pigeon was once common in eastern North America, but the species is now extinct. It became extinct in a very short period of time after its decline began; records from 1830 describe it migrating, roosting and nesting in enormous numbers, but by 1912, rewards were being offered for evidence of a live, wild bird.

Although there is a question of the natural survival of a bird that roosted in numbers that destroyed forests, that laid only one two egg in a flimsy nest, and that suffered losses from overcrowding and nestling mortality, it was human activity that ultimately doomed the bird to extinction. Shot, trapped, and clubbed for market, hog food, and sport, the species did not survive. The world's last Passenger Pigeon died in a zoo in 1914.

Passenger Pigeons were about 32 cm (13 in.) long.