The Tragic Tale of How South Dakota’s Only Parrot Went Extinct

If you were to travel back in time to South Dakota in the early 1800s, there's a good chance you'd spot a bird that would almost certainly look like it didn't belong in this environment. You'd look up at the towering cottonwoods and expect the same gray and brown plumage amongst the trees we see today. Instead, the sky erupts in a blinding flash of emerald green, vibrant yellow, and fire orange.

Making its home (in huge flocks) along the banks of the Missouri River was the Carolina Parakeet. This might sound like a fantastical work of fiction, but for those who lived in that time period, spotting a parrot in our neck of the woods wasn't a rarity, but rather, a common occurrence. These amazing birds once called the timbered river bottoms of the Big Sioux and the Missouri their home. And they didn't just visit in the summer; they were hardy enough to survive our ruthless winters by huddling together in the hollows of ancient trees.

Sadly, the same fellowships that helped them survive the harsh environment here would ultimately be their undoing. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Carolina Parakeet in South Dakota.

Get our free mobile app

The "Monster" Hunters' Discovery (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out in May of 1804 to map the recently acquired Louisiana Purchase, they had prepared themselves for finding the extraordinary. In fact, President Thomas Jefferson had specifically tasked them with looking for living remnants of the prehistoric past - monstrous creatures like the mastodon and giant ground sloths that he believed were still roaming the unexplored wilderness of North America.

While Lewis & Clark never found a living mammoth (they had already been extinct for a few thousand years), they did stumble upon something equally out of place for the northern Great Plains. As they pushed toward the South Dakota border, they found themselves surrounded by the screeching chatter of the Carolina Parakeet. It might not have been the prehistoric beast Jefferson was hoping to find, but to these explorers, seeing a tropical-colored parrot thriving in the Missouri River valley was a discovery that felt just as bizarre and fantastical.

The birds were a fairly common sight to see along the banks of the Missouri. Often traveling in large flocks, eating the seeds, fruits, and nuts from the trees in the area. Another unusual feature the parakeet exhibited was that when members of a flock were shot or injured, the remaining birds would circle back and converge around the dead or wounded, making them easy targets for further hunting.

As the 1800s moved forward and the landscape of South Dakota began to change, the luck of the Carolina Parakeet ran out. Its downfall wasn't just due to habitat loss, though; it was actually triggered by its greatest strength: its loyalty to its own kind.

As Lewis & Clark noted, the Carolina Parakeet had a "grief" instinct that made it extremely easy to kill in the face of human expansion. When settlers began arriving in the area, they viewed the parakeet as a "pest" because of its love of fruit, so more often than not, they would shoot the birds whenever they got a chance. If a hunter or a farmer shot a single bird in a flock, the rest wouldn't fly away. Astonishingly, they would instead circle back, hovering and screaming over their fallen companion. Unfortunately, this allowed a single person to wipe out an entire colony of parakeets in a matter of minutes.

The relative ease with which farmers were able to kill the bird, combined with a high demand for their feathers in the fashion industry at the time, meant that the Carolina Parakeet's days were numbered.

The end came surprisingly fast for the bird. While millions once filled the skies from the East Coast to the Dakota Territory, the species eventually dwindled down to just a single pair held in captivity. On February 21, 1918, a male named Incas died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Sadly, he passed away in the same cage his mate (Lady Jane) died in just a few weeks before.

These days, when we look along the banks of the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers, it's hard to imagine a tropical bird once living there, but the tale of the Carolina Parakeet reminds us of a bygone age where the South Dakota landscape was much more colorful.

Story Sources: South Dakota Birds Website