feb 1, 1885 - passenger pigeon goes extinct

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At the state level, meanwhile, new game laws triggered conflicts between elite conservationists and the poor. Shifting from year-round hunting to a limited, recreational hunting season brought hardship to poor rural families who depended on game for food. Regulation brought undeniable benefits: it suppressed such popular practices as songbird hunting and the use of dynamite to kill fish. Looking back on the era before game laws, one Alabama hunter remembered that “the slaughter was terrific.” But while game laws prevented further extinctions like that of the passenger pigeon, which vanished around 1900, they made it harder for rural people to support themselves through subsistence hunting and fishing.

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