title: Passenger pigeon

text: For a 2017 genetic study, the authors sequenced the genomes of two additional passenger pigeons, as well as analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of 41 individuals. This study found evidence that the passenger-pigeon population had been stable for at least the previous 20,000 years. The study also found that the size of the passenger pigeon population over that time period had been larger than the 2014 genetic study had found. However, the 2017 study's "conservative" estimate of an "effective population size" of 13 million birds is still only about 1/300th of the bird's estimated historic population of approximately 3–5 billion before their "19th century decline and eventual extinction." A similar study inferring human population size from genetics (published in 2008, and using human mitochondrial DNA and Bayesian coalescent inference methods) showed considerable accuracy in reflecting overall patterns of human population growth as compared to data deduced by other means — though the study arrived at a human effective population size (as of 1600 AD, for Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas combined) that was roughly 1/1000 of the census population estimate for the same time and area based on anthropological and historical evidence.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The 2017 passenger-pigeon genetic study also found that, in spite of its large population size, the genetic diversity was very low in the species. The authors suggested that this was a side-effect of natural selection, which theory and previous empirical studies suggested could have a particular great impact on species with very large and cohesive populations. Natural selection can reduce genetic diversity over extended regions of a genome through 'selective sweeps' or 'background selection'. The authors found evidence of a faster rate of adaptive evolution and faster removal of harmful mutations in passenger pigeons compared to band-tailed pigeons, which are some of passenger pigeons' closest living relatives. They also found evidence of lower genetic diversity in regions of the passenger pigeon genome that have lower rates of genetic recombination. This is expected if natural selection, via selective sweeps or background selection, reduced their genetic diversity, but not if population instability did. The study concluded that earlier suggestion that population instability contributed to the extinction of the species was invalid. Evolutionary biologist A. Townsend Peterson said of the two passenger-pigeon genetic studies (published in 2014 and 2017) that, though the idea of extreme fluctuations in the passenger-pigeon population was "deeply entrenched," he was persuaded by the 2017 study's argument, due to its "in-depth analysis" and "massive data resources."


title: Passenger pigeon

text: A communally roosting species, the passenger pigeon chose roosting sites that could provide shelter and enough food to sustain their large numbers for an indefinite period. The time spent at one roosting site may have depended on the extent of human persecution, weather conditions, or other, unknown factors. Roosts ranged in size and extent, from a few acres to or greater. Some roosting areas would be reused for subsequent years, others would only be used once. The passenger pigeon roosted in such numbers that even thick tree branches would break under the strain. The birds frequently piled on top of each other's backs to roost. They rested in a slumped position that hid their feet. They slept with their bills concealed by the feathers in the middle of the breast while holding their tail at a 45-degree angle. Dung could accumulate under a roosting site to a depth of over .


title: Passenger pigeon

text: If the pigeon became alert, it would often stretch out its head and neck in line with its body and tail, then nod its head in a circular pattern. When aggravated by another pigeon, it raised its wings threateningly, but passenger pigeons almost never actually fought. The pigeon bathed in shallow water, and afterwards lay on each side in turn and raised the opposite wing to dry it.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon drank at least once a day, typically at dawn, by fully inserting its bill into lakes, small ponds, and streams. Pigeons were seen perching on top of each other to access water, and if necessary, the species could alight on open water to drink. One of the primary causes of natural mortality was the weather, and every spring many individuals froze to death after migrating north too early. In captivity, a passenger pigeon was capable of living at least 15 years; Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon, was at least 17 and possibly as old as 29 when she died. It is undocumented how long a wild pigeon lived.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The bird is believed to have played a significant ecological role in the composition of pre-Columbian forests of eastern North America. For instance, while the passenger pigeon was extant, forests were dominated by white oaks. This species germinated in the fall, therefore making its seeds almost useless as a food source during the spring breeding season, while red oaks produced acorns during the spring, which were devoured by the pigeons. The absence of the passenger pigeon's seed consumption may have contributed to the modern dominance of red oaks. Due to the immense amount of dung present at roosting sites, few plants grew for years after the pigeons left. Also, the accumulation of flammable debris (such as limbs broken from trees and foliage killed by excrement) at these sites may have increased both the frequency and intensity of forest fires, which would have favored fire-tolerant species, such as bur oaks, black oaks, and white oaks over less fire-tolerant species, such as red oaks, thus helping to explain the change in the composition of eastern forests since the passenger pigeon's extinction (from white oaks, bur oaks, and black oaks predominating in presettlement forests, to the "dramatic expansion" of red oaks today).


title: Passenger pigeon

text: A study released in 2018 concluded that the "vast numbers" of passenger pigeons present for "tens of thousands of years" would have influenced the evolution of the tree species that they ate the seeds of — specifically, that masting trees that produced seeds during the spring nesting season (such as red oaks) evolved so that some portion of their seeds would be too large for passenger pigeons to swallow (thus allowing some of their seeds to escape predation and grow new trees), while white oaks, with its seeds sized consistently in the edible range, evolved an irregular masting pattern that took place in the fall, when fewer passenger pigeons would have been present. The study further concluded that this allowed white oaks to be the dominant tree species in regions where passenger pigeons were commonly present in the spring.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: With the large numbers in passenger pigeon flocks, the excrement they produced was enough to destroy surface-level vegetation at long-term roosting sites, while adding high quantities of nutrients to the ecosystem. Because of this — along with the breaking of tree limbs under their collective weight and the great amount of mast they consumed — passenger pigeons are thought to have influenced both the structure of eastern forests and the composition of the species present there. Due to these influences, some ecologists have considered the passenger pigeon a keystone species, with the disappearance of their vast flocks leaving a major gap in the ecosystem. Their role in creating forest disturbances has been linked to greater vertebrate diversity in forests by creating more niches for animals to fill, as well as contributing to a healthy forest fire cycle in the forests, as it has been found that forest fires have increased in prevalence since the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which seems to go against the idea that the tree limbs and branches they would bring down served as fuel for the fires. To help fill that ecological gap, it has been proposed that modern land managers attempt to replicate some of their effects on the ecosystem by creating openings in forest canopies to provide more understory light.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The American chestnut trees that provided much of the mast on which the passenger pigeon fed was itself almost driven to extinction by an imported Asian fungus (chestnut blight) around 1905. As many as thirty billion trees are thought to have died as a result in the following decades, but this did not affect the passenger pigeon, which was already extinct in the wild at the time.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: After the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, the population of another acorn feeding species, the white-footed mouse, grew exponentially because of the increased availability of the seeds of the oak, beech and chestnut trees. It has been speculated that the extinction of passenger pigeons may have increased the prevalence of tick-borne lyme disease in modern times as white-footed mice are the reservoir hosts of "Borrelia burgdorferi".


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Beeches and oaks produced the mast needed to support nesting and roosting flocks. The passenger pigeon changed its diet depending on the season. In the fall, winter, and spring, it mainly ate beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. During the summer, berries and softer fruits, such as blueberries, grapes, cherries, mulberries, pokeberries, and bunchberry, became the main objects of its consumption. It also ate worms, caterpillars, snails, and other invertebrates, particularly while breeding. It took advantage of cultivated grains, particularly buckwheat, when it found them. It was especially fond of salt, which it ingested either from brackish springs or salty soil.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Mast occurs in large quantities in different places at different times, and rarely in consecutive years, which is one of the reasons why the large flocks were constantly on the move. As mast is produced during autumn, there would have to be a large amount of it left by the summer, when the young were reared. It is unknown how they located this fluctuating food source, but their eyesight and flight powers helped them survey large areas for places that could provide food enough for a temporary stay.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon foraged in flocks of tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals that overturned leaves, dirt, and snow with their bills in search of food. One observer described the motion of such a flock in search of mast as having a rolling appearance, as birds in the back of the flock flew overhead to the front of the flock, dropping leaves and grass in flight. The flocks had wide leading edges to better scan the landscape for food sources.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: When nuts on a tree loosened from their caps, a pigeon would land on a branch and, while flapping vigorously to stay balanced, grab the nut, pull it loose from its cap, and swallow it whole. Collectively, a foraging flock was capable of removing nearly all fruits and nuts from their path. Birds in the back of the flock flew to the front in order to pick over unsearched ground; however, birds never ventured far from the flock and hurried back if they became isolated. It is believed that the pigeons used social cues to identify abundant sources of food, and a flock of pigeons that saw others feeding on the ground often joined them. During the day, the birds left the roosting forest to forage on more open land. They regularly flew away from their roost daily in search of food, and some pigeons reportedly traveled as far as , leaving the roosting area early and returning at night.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon had a very elastic mouth and throat, allowing for increased capacity, and a joint in the lower bill enabled it to swallow acorns whole. It could store large quantities of food in its crop, which could expand to about the size of an orange, causing the neck to bulge and allowing a bird quickly to grab any food it discovered. The crop was described as being capable of holding at least 17 acorns or 28 beechnuts, 11 grains of corn, 100 maple seeds, plus other material; it was estimated that a passenger pigeon needed to eat about of food a day to survive. If shot, a pigeon with a crop full of nuts would fall to the ground with a sound described as like the rattle of a bag of marbles. After feeding, the pigeons perched on branches and digested the food stored in their crop overnight.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The pigeon could eat and digest of acorns per day. At the historic population of three billion passenger pigeons, this amounted to of food a day. The pigeon could regurgitate food from its crop when more desirable food became available. A 2018 study found that the dietary range of the passenger pigeon was restricted to certain sizes of seed, due to the size of its gape. This would have prevented it from eating some of the seeds of trees such as red oaks, the black oak, and the American chestnut. Specifically, the study found that between 13% and 69% of red oak seeds were too large for passenger pigeons to have swallowed, that only a "small proportion" of the seeds of black oaks and American chestnuts were too large for the birds to consume, and that all white oak seeds were sized within an edible range. They also found that seeds would be completely destroyed during digestion, which therefore hindered dispersal of seeds this way. Instead, passenger pigeons may have spread seeds by regurgitation, or after dying.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Other than finding roosting sites, the migrations of the passenger pigeon were connected with finding places appropriate for this communally breeding bird to nest and raise its young. It is not certain how many times a year the birds bred; once seems most likely, but some accounts suggest more. The nesting period lasted around four to six weeks. The flock arrived at a nesting ground around March in southern latitudes, and some time later in more northern areas. The pigeon had no site fidelity, often choosing to nest in a different location each year. The formation of a nesting colony did not necessarily take place until several months after the pigeons arrived on their breeding grounds, typically during late March, April, or May.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The colonies, which were known as "cities", were immense, ranging from to thousands of hectares in size, and were often long and narrow in shape (L-shaped), with a few areas untouched for unknown reasons. Due to the topography, they were rarely continuous. Since no accurate data was recorded, it is not possible to give more than estimates on the size and population of these nesting areas, but most accounts mention colonies containing millions of birds. The largest nesting area ever recorded was in central Wisconsin in 1871; it was reported as covering , with the number of birds nesting there estimated to be around 136,000,000. As well as these "cities", there were regular reports of much smaller flocks or even individual pairs setting up a nesting site. The birds do not seem to have formed as vast breeding colonies at the periphery of their range.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Courtship took place at the nesting colony. Unlike other pigeons, courtship took place on a branch or perch. The male, with a flourish of the wings, made a "keck" call while near a female. The male then gripped tightly to the branch and vigorously flapped his wings up and down. When the male was close to the female, he then pressed against her on the perch with his head held high and pointing at her. If receptive, the female pressed back against the male. When ready to mate, the pair preened each other. This was followed by the birds billing, in which the female inserted its bill into and clasped the male's bill, shook for a second, and separated quickly while standing next to each other. The male then scrambled onto the female's back and copulated, which was then followed by soft clucking and occasionally more preening. John James Audubon described the courtship of the passenger pigeon as follows:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: After observing captive birds, Wallace Craig found that this species did less charging and strutting than other pigeons (as it was awkward on the ground), and thought it probable that no food was transferred during their brief billing (unlike in other pigeons), and he therefore considered Audubon's description partially based on analogy with other pigeons as well as imagination.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Nests were built immediately after pair formation and took two to four days to construct; this process was highly synchronized within a colony. The female chose the nesting site by sitting on it and flicking its wings. The male then carefully selected nesting materials, typically twigs, and handed them to the female over her back. The male then went in search of more nesting material while the female constructed the nest beneath herself. Nests were built between above the ground, though typically above , and were made of 70 to 110 twigs woven together to create a loose, shallow bowl through which the egg could easily be seen. This bowl was then typically lined with finer twigs. The nests were about wide, high, and deep. Though the nest has been described as crude and flimsy compared to those of many other birds, remains of nests could be found at sites where nesting had taken place several years prior. Nearly every tree capable of supporting nests had them, often more than 50 per tree; one hemlock was recorded as holding 317 nests. The nests were placed on strong branches close to the tree trunks. Some accounts state that ground under the nesting area looked as if it had been swept clean, due to all the twigs being collected at the same time, yet this area would also have been covered in dung. As both sexes took care of the nest, the pairs were monogamous for the duration of the nesting.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Generally, the eggs were laid during the first two weeks of April across the pigeon's range. Each female laid its egg immediately or almost immediately after the nest was completed; sometimes the pigeon was forced to lay it on the ground if the nest was not complete. The normal clutch size appears to have been a single egg, but there is some uncertainty about this, as two have also been reported from the same nests. Occasionally, a second female laid its egg in another female's nest, resulting in two eggs being present. The egg was white and oval shaped and averaged in size. If the egg was lost, it was possible for the pigeon to lay a replacement egg within a week. A whole colony was known to re-nest after a snowstorm forced them to abandon their original colony. The egg was incubated by both parents for 12 to 14 days, with the male incubating it from midmorning to midafternoon and the female incubating it for the rest of the time.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Upon hatching, the nestling (or squab) was blind and sparsely covered with yellow, hairlike down. The nestling developed quickly and within 14 days weighed as much as its parents. During this brooding period both parents took care of the nestling, with the male attending in the middle of the day and the female at other times. The nestlings were fed crop milk (a substance similar to curd, produced in the crops of the parent birds) exclusively for the first days after hatching. Adult food was gradually introduced after three to six days. After 13 to 15 days, the parents fed the nestling for a last time and then abandoned it, leaving the nesting area "en masse". The nestling begged in the nest for a day or two, before climbing from the nest and fluttering to the ground, whereafter it moved around, avoided obstacles, and begged for food from nearby adults. It was another three or four days before it fledged. The entire nesting cycle lasted about 30 days. It is unknown whether colonies re-nested after a successful nesting. The passenger pigeon sexually matured during its first year and bred the following spring.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Alfred Russel Wallace, in his historic 1858 paper On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, used the passenger pigeon as an example of an immensely successful species despite laying fewer eggs than most other birds:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Nesting colonies attracted large numbers of predators, including American minks ("Neogale vison"), long-tailed weasels ("Neogale frenata"), American martens ("Martes americana"), and raccoons ("Procyon lotor") that preyed on eggs and nestlings, birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and eagles that preyed on nestlings and adults, and wolves ("Canis lupus"), foxes ("Urocyon cinereoargenteus" and "Vulpes vulpes"), bobcats ("Lynx rufus"), American black bears ("Ursus americanus"), and cougars ("Puma concolor") that preyed on injured adults and fallen nestlings. Hawks of the genus "Accipiter" and falcons pursued and preyed upon pigeons in flight, which in turn executed complex aerial maneuvers to avoid them; Cooper's hawk ("Accipiter cooperii") was known as the "great pigeon hawk" due to its successes, and these hawks allegedly followed migrating passenger pigeons. While many predators were drawn to the flocks, individual pigeons were largely protected due to the sheer size of the flock, and overall little damage could be inflicted on the flock by predation. Despite the number of predators, nesting colonies were so large that they were estimated to have a 90% success rate if not disturbed. After being abandoned and leaving the nest, the very fat juveniles were vulnerable to predators until they were able to fly. The sheer number of juveniles on the ground meant that only a small percentage of them were killed; predator satiation may therefore be one of the reasons for the extremely social habits and communal breeding of the species.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Two parasites have been recorded on passenger pigeons. One species of phtilopterid louse, "Columbicola extinctus", was originally thought to have lived on just passenger pigeons and to have become coextinct with them. This was proven inaccurate in 1999 when "C. extinctus" was rediscovered living on band-tailed pigeons. This, and the fact that the related louse "C. angustus" is mainly found on cuckoo-doves, further supports the relation between these pigeons, as the phylogeny of lice broadly mirrors that of their hosts. Another louse, "Campanulotes defectus", was thought to have been unique to the passenger pigeon, but is now believed to have been a case of a contaminated specimen, as the species is considered to be the still-extant "Campanulotes flavus" of Australia. There is no record of a wild pigeon dying of either disease or parasites.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: For fifteen thousand years or more before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, passenger pigeons and Native Americans coexisted in the forests of what would later become the eastern part of the continental United States. A study published in 2008 found that, throughout most of the Holocene, Native American land-use practices greatly influenced forest composition. The regular use of prescribed fire, the girdling of unwanted trees, and the planting and tending of favored trees suppressed the populations of a number of tree species that did not produce nuts, acorns, or fruit, while increasing the populations of numerous tree species that did. In addition, the burning away of forest-floor litter made these foods easier to find, once they had fallen from the trees. Some have argued that such Native American land-use practices increased the populations of various animal species, including the passenger pigeon, by increasing the food available to them, while elsewhere it has been claimed that, by hunting passenger pigeons and competing with them for some kinds of nuts and acorns, Native Americans suppressed their population size. Genetic research may shed some light on this question. A 2017 study of passenger-pigeon DNA found that the passenger-pigeon population size had been stable for 20,000 years prior to its 19th-century decline and subsequent extinction, while a 2016 study of ancient Native American DNA found that the Native American population went through a period of rapid expansion, increasing 60-fold, starting about 13–16 thousand years ago. If both of these studies are correct, then a great change in the size of the Native American population had no apparent impact on the size of the passenger-pigeon population. This suggests that the net effect of Native American activities on passenger-pigeon population size was neutral.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon played a religious role for some northern Native American tribes. The Wyandot people (or Huron) believed that every twelve years during the Feast of the Dead, the souls of the dead changed into passenger pigeons, which were then hunted and eaten. Before hunting the juvenile pigeons, the Seneca people made an offering of wampum and brooches to the old passenger pigeons; these were placed in a small kettle or other receptacle by a smoky fire. The Ho-Chunk people considered the passenger pigeon to be the bird of the chief, as they were served whenever the chieftain gave a feast. The Seneca people believed that a white pigeon was the chief of the passenger pigeon colony, and that a Council of Birds had decided that the pigeons had to give their bodies to the Seneca because they were the only birds that nested in colonies. The Seneca developed a pigeon dance as a way of showing their gratitude.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to report on passenger pigeons, during his voyage in 1534. The bird was subsequently observed and noted by historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and Cotton Mather. Most early accounts dwell on the vast number of pigeons, the resulting darkened skies, and the enormous amount of hunted birds (50,000 birds were reportedly sold at a Boston market in 1771). The early colonists thought that large flights of pigeons would be followed by ill fortune or sickness. When the pigeons wintered outside of their normal range, some believed that they would have "a sickly summer and autumn." In the 18th and 19th centuries, various parts of the pigeon were thought to have medicinal properties. The blood was supposed to be good for eye disorders, the powdered stomach lining was used to treat dysentery, and the dung was used to treat a variety of ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and lethargy. Though they did not last as long as the feathers of a goose, the feathers of the passenger pigeon were frequently used for bedding. Pigeon feather beds were so popular that for a time in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, every dowry included a bed and pillows made of pigeon feathers. In 1822, one family in Chautauqua County, New York, killed 4,000 pigeons in a day solely for this purpose.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was featured in the writings of many significant early naturalists, as well as accompanying illustrations. Mark Catesby's 1731 illustration, the first published depiction of this bird, is somewhat crude, according to some later commentators. The original watercolor that the engraving is based on was bought by the British royal family in 1768, along with the rest of Catesby's watercolors. The naturalists Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon both witnessed large pigeon migrations first hand, and published detailed accounts wherein both attempted to deduce the total number of birds involved. The most famous and often reproduced depiction of the passenger pigeon is Audubon's illustration (handcolored aquatint) in his book "The Birds of America", published between 1827 and 1838. Audubon's image has been praised for its artistic qualities, but criticized for its supposed scientific inaccuracies. As Wallace Craig and R. W. Shufeldt (among others) pointed out, the birds are shown perched and billing one above the other, whereas they would instead have done this side by side, the male would be the one passing food to the female, and the male's tail would not be spread. Craig and Shufeldt instead cited illustrations by American artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Japanese artist K. Hayashi as more accurate depictions of the bird. Illustrations of the passenger pigeon were often drawn after stuffed birds, and Charles R. Knight is the only "serious" artist known to have drawn the species from life. He did so on at least two occasions; in 1903 he drew a bird possibly in one of the three aviaries with surviving birds, and some time before 1914, he drew Martha, the last individual, in the Cincinnati Zoo.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The bird has been written about (including in poems, songs, and fiction) and illustrated by many notable writers and artists, and is depicted in art to this day, for example in Walton Ford's 2002 painting "Falling Bough", and National Medal of Arts winner John A. Ruthven's 2014 mural in Cincinnati, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Martha's death. The centennial of its extinction was used by the "Project Passenger Pigeon" outreach group to spread awareness about human-induced extinction, and to recognize its relevance in the 21st century. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon could be used as a "flagship" species to spread awareness of other threatened, but less well-known North American birds.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The passenger pigeon was an important source of food for the people of North America. Native Americans ate pigeons, and tribes near nesting colonies would sometimes move to live closer to them and eat the juveniles, killing them at night with long poles. Many Native Americans were careful not to disturb the adult pigeons, and instead ate only the juveniles as they were afraid that the adults might desert their nesting grounds; in some tribes, disturbing the adult pigeons was considered a crime. Away from the nests, large nets were used to capture adult pigeons, sometimes up to 800 at a time. Low-flying pigeons could be killed by throwing sticks or stones. At one site in Oklahoma, the pigeons leaving their roost every morning flew low enough that the Cherokee could throw clubs into their midst, which caused the lead pigeons to try to turn aside and in the process created a blockade that resulted in a large mass of flying, easily hit pigeons. Among the game birds, passenger pigeons were second only to the wild turkey ("Meleagris gallopavo") in terms of importance for the Native Americans living in the southeastern United States. The bird's fat was stored, often in large quantities, and used as butter. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that Native Americans ate the pigeons frequently prior to colonization.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: What may be the earliest account of Europeans hunting passenger pigeons dates to January 1565, when the French explorer René Laudonnière wrote of killing close to 10,000 of them around Fort Caroline in a matter of weeks: There came to us a manna of wood pigeons in such great numbers, that over a span of about seven weeks, each day we killed more than two hundred with arquebuses in the woods around our fort.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: After European colonization, the passenger pigeon was hunted more intensively and with more sophisticated methods than the more sustainable methods practiced by the natives. Yet it has also been suggested that the species was rare prior to 1492, and that the subsequent increase in their numbers may be due to the decrease in the Native American population (who, as well as hunting the birds, competed with them for mast) caused by European immigration, and the supplementary food (agricultural crops) the immigrants imported (a theory for which Joel Greenberg offered a detailed rebuttal in his book, "A Feathered River Across the Sky"). The passenger pigeon was of particular value on the frontier, and some settlements counted on its meat to support their population. The flavor of the flesh of passenger pigeons varied depending on how they were prepared. In general, juveniles were thought to taste the best, followed by birds fattened in captivity and birds caught in September and October. It was common practice to fatten trapped pigeons before eating them or storing their bodies for winter. Dead pigeons were commonly stored by salting or pickling the bodies; other times, only the breasts of the pigeons were kept, in which case they were typically smoked. In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds. The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees. Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down. The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench. Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys. In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock. The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside. Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time. These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers. Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap. Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs. At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill. Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within. In one case, of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common. A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground. Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously it had proved too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized. An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks. After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round. A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career. In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them. The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Hunting of passenger pigeons was documented and depicted in contemporaneous newspapers, wherein various trapping methods and uses were featured. The most often reproduced of these illustrations was captioned "Winter sports in northern Louisiana: shooting wild pigeons", and published in 1875. Passenger pigeons were also seen as agricultural pests, since entire crops could be destroyed by feeding flocks. The bird was described as a "perfect scourge" by some farming communities, and hunters were employed to "wage warfare" on the birds to save grain, as shown in another newspaper illustration from 1867 captioned as "Shooting wild pigeons in Iowa". When comparing these "pests" to the bison of the Great Plains, the valuable resource needed was not the species of animals but the agriculture which was consumed by said animal. The crops that were eaten were seen as marketable calories, proteins, and nutrients all grown for the wrong species.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The notion that the species could be driven to extinction was alien to the early colonists, because the number of birds did not appear to diminish, and also because the concept of extinction was yet to be defined. The bird seems to have been slowly pushed westwards after the arrival of Europeans, becoming scarce or absent in the east, though there were still millions of birds in the 1850s. The population must have been decreasing in numbers for many years, though this went unnoticed due to the apparent vast number of birds, which clouded their decline. In 1856 Bénédict Henry Révoil may have been one of the first writers to voice concern about the fate of the passenger pigeon, after witnessing a hunt in 1847:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: By the 1870s, the decrease in birds was noticeable, especially after the last large-scale nestings and subsequent slaughters of millions of birds in 1874 and 1878. By this time, large nestings only took place in the north, around the Great Lakes. The last large nesting was in Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878 (following one in Pennsylvania a few days earlier), where 50,000 birds were killed each day for nearly five months. The surviving adults attempted a second nesting at new sites, but were killed by professional hunters before they had a chance to raise any young. Scattered nestings were reported into the 1880s, but the birds were now wary, and commonly abandoned their nests if persecuted.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: By the time of these last nestings, laws had already been enacted to protect the passenger pigeon, but these proved ineffective, as they were unclearly framed and hard to enforce. H. B. Roney, who had witnessed the Petoskey slaughter, led campaigns to protect the pigeon, but was met with resistance, and accusations that he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. Few offenders were prosecuted, mainly some poor trappers, but the large enterprises were not affected. In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon, yet a Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating that the bird did not need protection, being "wonderfully prolific", and dismissing the suggestion that the species could be destroyed. Public protests against trap-shooting erupted in the 1870s, as the birds were badly treated before and after such contests. Conservationists were ineffective in stopping the slaughter. A bill was passed in the Michigan legislature making it illegal to net pigeons within of a nesting area. In 1897, a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a 10-year closed season on passenger pigeons. Similar legal measures were passed and then disregarded in Pennsylvania. The gestures proved futile, and by the mid-1890s, the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared, and was probably extinct as a breeding bird in the wild. Small flocks are known to have existed at this point, since large numbers of birds were still being sold at markets. Thereafter, only small groups or individual birds were reported, many of which were shot on sight.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The last recorded nest and egg in the wild were collected in 1895 near Minneapolis. The last wild individual in Louisiana was discovered among a flock of mourning doves in 1896, and subsequently shot. Many late sightings are thought to be false or due to confusion with mourning doves. The last fully authenticated record of a wild passenger pigeon was near Oakford, Illinois, on March 12, 1901, when a male bird was killed, stuffed, and placed in Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where it remains today. This was not discovered until 2014, when writer Joel Greenberg found out the date of the bird's shooting while doing research for his book "A Feathered River Across the Sky." Greenberg also pointed out a record of a male shot near Laurel, Indiana, on April 3, 1902, that was stuffed but later destroyed.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: For many years, the last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was thought to have been shot near Sargents, Pike County, Ohio, on March 24, 1900, when a female bird was killed by a boy named Press Clay Southworth with a BB gun. The boy had not recognized the bird as a passenger pigeon, but his parents identified it, and sent it to a taxidermist. The specimen, nicknamed "Buttons" due to the buttons used instead of glass eyes, was donated to the Ohio Historical Society by the family in 1915. The reliability of accounts after the Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana birds are in question. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed to have seen a bird in Michigan in 1907. Ornithologist Alexander Wetmore claimed that he saw a pair flying near Independence, Kansas, in April 1905. In 1910, the American Ornithologists' Union offered a reward of $3,000 for discovering a nest — .


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Most captive passenger pigeons were kept for exploitative purposes, but some were housed in zoos and aviaries. Audubon alone claimed to have brought 350 birds to England in 1830, distributing them among various noblemen, and the species is also known to have been kept at London Zoo. Being common birds, these attracted little interest, until the species became rare in the 1890s. By the turn of the 20th century, the last known captive passenger pigeons were divided in three groups; one in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in Cincinnati. There are claims of a few further individuals having been kept in various places, but these accounts are not considered reliable today. The Milwaukee group was kept by David Whittaker, who began his collection in 1888, and possessed fifteen birds some years later, all descended from a single pair.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The Chicago group was kept by Charles Otis Whitman, whose collection began with passenger pigeons bought from Whittaker beginning in 1896. He had an interest in studying pigeons, and kept his passenger pigeons with other pigeon species. Whitman brought his pigeons with him from Chicago to Massachusetts by railcar each summer. By 1897, Whitman had bought all of Whittaker's birds, and upon reaching a maximum of 19 individuals, he gave seven back to Whittaker in 1898. Around this time, a series of photographs were taken of these birds; 24 of the photos survive. Some of these images have been reproduced in various media, copies of which are now kept at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is unclear exactly where, when, and by whom these photos were taken, but some appear to have been taken in Chicago in 1896, others in Massachusetts in 1898, the latter by a J. G. Hubbard. By 1902, Whitman owned sixteen birds. Many eggs were laid by his pigeons, but few hatched, and many hatchlings died. A newspaper inquiry was published that requested "fresh blood" to the flock which had now ceased breeding. By 1907, he was down to two female passenger pigeons that died that winter, and was left with two infertile male hybrids, whose subsequent fate is unknown. By this time, only four (all males) of the birds Whitman had returned to Whittaker were alive, and these died between November 1908 and February 1909.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The Cincinnati Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in the United States, kept passenger pigeons from its beginning in 1875. The zoo kept more than twenty individuals, in a ten-by-twelve-foot cage. Passenger pigeons do not appear to have been kept at the zoo due to their rarity, but to enable guests to have a closer look at a native species. Recognizing the decline of the wild populations, Whitman and the Cincinnati Zoo consistently strove to breed the surviving birds, including attempts at making a rock dove foster passenger pigeon eggs. In 1902, Whitman gave a female passenger pigeon to the zoo; this was possibly the individual later known as Martha, which would become the last living member of the species. Other sources argue that Martha was hatched at the Cincinnati Zoo, had lived there for 25 years, and was the descendant of three pairs of passenger pigeons purchased by the zoo in 1877. It is thought this individual was named Martha because her last cage mate was named George, thereby honoring George Washington and his wife Martha, though it has also been claimed she was named after the mother of a zookeeper's friends.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: In 1909, Martha and her two male companions at the Cincinnati Zoo became the only known surviving passenger pigeons. One of these males died around April that year, followed by George, the remaining male, on July 10, 1910. It is unknown whether the remains of George were preserved. Martha soon became a celebrity due to her status as an endling, and offers of a $1,000 reward for finding a mate for her brought even more visitors to see her. During her last four years in solitude (her cage was ), Martha became steadily slower and more immobile; visitors would throw sand at her to make her move, and her cage was roped off in response. Martha died of old age on September 1, 1914, and was found lifeless on the floor of her cage. It was claimed that she died at 1 p.m., but other sources suggest she died some hours later. Depending on the source, Martha was between 17 and 29 years old at the time of her death, although 29 is the generally accepted figure. At the time, it was suggested that Martha might have died from an apoplectic stroke, as she had suffered one a few weeks before dying. Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it was skinned, dissected, photographed, and mounted. As she was molting when she died, she proved difficult to stuff, and previously shed feathers were added to the skin. Martha was on display for many years, but after a period in the museum vaults, she was put back on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 2015. A memorial statue of Martha stands on the grounds of the Cincinnati Zoo, in front of the "Passenger Pigeon Memorial Hut", formerly the aviary wherein Martha lived, now a National Historic Landmark. Incidentally, the last specimen of the extinct Carolina parakeet, named "Incus," died in Martha's cage in 1918; the stuffed remains of that bird are exhibited in the "Memorial Hut".


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The main reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon were the massive scale of hunting, the rapid loss of habitat, and the extremely social lifestyle of the bird, which made it highly vulnerable to the former factors. Deforestation was driven by the need to free land for agriculture and expanding towns, but also due to the demand for lumber and fuel. About 728,000 km (180 million acres) were cleared for farming between 1850 and 1910. Though there are still large woodland areas in eastern North America, which support a variety of wildlife, it was not enough to support the vast number of passenger pigeons needed to sustain the population. In contrast, very small populations of nearly extinct birds, such as the kakapo ("Strigops habroptilus") and the takahe ("Porphyrio hochstetteri"), have been enough to keep those species extant to the present. The combined effects of intense hunting and deforestation has been referred to as a "Blitzkrieg" against the passenger pigeon, and it has been labeled one of the greatest and most senseless human-induced extinctions in history. As the flocks dwindled in size, the passenger pigeon population decreased below the threshold necessary to propagate the species, an example of the Allee effect.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The 2014 genetic study that found natural fluctuations in population numbers prior to human arrival also concluded that the species routinely recovered from lows in the population, and suggested that one of these lows may have coincided with the intensified hunting by humans in the 1800s, a combination which would have led to the rapid extinction of the species. A similar scenario may also explain the rapid extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust ("Melanoplus spretus") during the same period. It has also been suggested that after the population was thinned out, it would be harder for few or solitary birds to locate suitable feeding areas. In addition to the birds killed or driven away by hunting during breeding seasons, many nestlings were also orphaned before being able to fend for themselves. Other, less convincing contributing factors have been suggested at times, including mass drownings, Newcastle disease, and migrations to areas outside their original range.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The extinction of the passenger pigeon aroused public interest in the conservation movement, and resulted in new laws and practices which prevented many other species from becoming extinct. The rapid decline of the passenger pigeon has influenced later assessment methods of the extinction risk of endangered animal populations. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has used the passenger pigeon as an example in cases where a species was declared "at risk" for extinction even though population numbers are high.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Naturalist Aldo Leopold paid tribute to the vanished species in a monument dedication held by the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology at Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin, which had been one of the species' social roost sites. Speaking on May 11, 1947, Leopold remarked:


title: Passenger pigeon

text: Today, more than 1,532 passenger pigeon skins (along with 16 skeletons) are in existence, spread across many institutions all over the world. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon should be revived when available technology allows it (a concept which has been termed "de-extinction"), using genetic material from such specimens. In 2003, the Pyrenean ibex ("Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica", a subspecies of the Spanish ibex) was the first extinct animal to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for only seven minutes before dying of lung defects. A hindrance to cloning the passenger pigeon is the fact that the DNA of museum specimens has been contaminated and fragmented, due to exposure to heat and oxygen. American geneticist George M. Church has proposed that the passenger pigeon genome can be reconstructed by piecing together DNA fragments from different specimens. The next step would be to splice these genes into the stem cells of rock pigeons (or band-tailed pigeons), which would then be transformed into egg and sperm cells, and placed into the eggs of rock pigeons, resulting in rock pigeons bearing passenger pigeon sperm and eggs. The offspring of these would have passenger pigeon traits, and would be further bred to favor unique features of the extinct species.


title: Passenger pigeon

text: The general idea of re-creating extinct species has been criticized, since the large funds needed could be spent on conserving currently threatened species and habitats, and because conservation efforts might be viewed as less urgent. In the case of the passenger pigeon, since it was very social, it is unlikely that enough birds could be created for revival to be successful, and it is unclear whether there is enough appropriate habitat left for its reintroduction. Furthermore, the parent pigeons that would raise the cloned passenger pigeons would belong to a different species, with a different way of rearing young.


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Jordan Bridges (born November 13, 1973) is an American actor, best known as Frankie Rizzoli on "Rizzoli & Isles" (2010–2016).


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Bridges was born in Los Angeles County, California, and is the son of actor Beau Bridges and Julie Bridges. He is the nephew of Jeff Bridges and the grandson of Lloyd Bridges and Dorothy Bridges.


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Bridges first acted professionally at the age of five in the television film "The Kid from Nowhere" (1982), directed by his father. After a break he returned once more in the television film "The Thanksgiving Promise" (1986), starring the entire Bridges family. Not wanting to be a child actor, he left acting and attended L.A.'s Oakwood School. The school had a strong emphasis on the arts, which rekindled his interest in acting. He followed it up as a theater major and literature minor at New York's Bard College. Before earning his bachelor's degree, Bridges spent his junior year in England, studying at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, living in a tiny basement flat in Chelsea, and attending West End theatre productions on free passes.


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Although classically trained, he worked as a "cater waiter" in New York and Los Angeles for several years each before he started getting roles in films, television series, and theater. He starred in the short-lived NBC series "Conviction" as Nick Potter, a lawyer from an "old money" family of prominence, who leaves his job at a private law firm to join the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He is also known for his starring role in the 2002 film "New Suit", the 2004 film "", and the 2009 "Love Comes Softly" movie series films "Love Takes Wing" and "Love Finds a Home", as well as a recurring role on the TV series "Dawson's Creek". He also had a guest role in the two-part, fourth-season-premiere episode of "Charmed", as Paige's boyfriend, Shane. He played the recurring character Tom Hastings in the "Bionic Woman" series. He has also played supporting roles in the films "Drive Me Crazy" (1999), "Frequency" (2000), "Happy Campers" (2001), and "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003). In "A Holiday Engagement" (2011) he plays David, a man hired to impersonate a woman's fiancé to her family over Thanksgiving. Similarly, in "Family Plan" (2005) he plays Buck, a man hired to impersonate a woman's husband to her boss for the night.


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Bridges appeared in the TNT drama series "Rizzoli & Isles", which premiered in July 2010 and concluded in September 2016.


title: Jordan Bridges

text: Bridges married artist-inventor Caroline Sherman Eastman in 2002 at Burning Man and again on January 2, 2003, at a small ceremony in Kauai, Hawaii. They have two children: Caroline (nicknamed Lola) and Orson.


title: Good Morning America

text: Good Morning America (often abbreviated as GMA) is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. The Sunday edition was canceled in 1999; weekend editions returned on both Saturdays and Sundays on September 4, 2004. The weekday and Saturday programs airs from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in all United States timezones (live in the Eastern Time Zone and on broadcast delay elsewhere across the country). The Sunday editions are an hour long and are transmitted to ABC's stations live at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time, although stations in some media markets air them at different times. Viewers in the Pacific Time Zone receive an updated feed with a specialized opening and updated live reports. A third hour of the weekday broadcast aired from 2007 to 2008, exclusively on ABC News Now.


title: Good Morning America

text: The program features news, interviews, weather forecasts, special-interest stories, and feature segments such as "Pop News" (featuring popular culture and entertainment news, and viral video), the "GMA Heat Index" (featuring a mix of entertainment, lifestyle and human-interest stories) and "Play of the Day" (featuring a selected viral video or television program clip). It is produced by ABC News and broadcasts from the Times Square Studios in New York City's Times Square district. The primary anchors are Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and former New York Giants defensive end and former "Live" co-host Michael Strahan with breaking news anchor Amy Robach, entertainment anchor Lara Spencer and weather anchor Ginger Zee.


title: Good Morning America

text: "Good Morning America" has been the most watched morning show in total viewers and key demos each year since summer 2012. "GMA" generally placed second in the ratings, behind NBC's "Today", from 1995 to 2012. It overtook its rival for a period from the early to mid-1980s with anchors David Hartman and Joan Lunden, from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s with Charles Gibson and Lunden, and in April 2012 with Roberts and Stephanopoulos.


title: Good Morning America

text: "Good Morning America" won the first three Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Morning Program", sharing the inaugural 2007 award with "Today" and winning the 2008 and 2009 awards outright.


title: Good Morning America

text: On January 6, 1975, ABC launched "AM America" in an attempt to compete with NBC's "Today". The program was hosted by Bill Beutel and Stephanie Edwards, with Peter Jennings reading the news (Jennings had been a replacement for Bob Kennedy, who had been scheduled to be the program's newsreader, but died two months before the premiere from bone cancer). Because the show could not find an audience against "Today" (and its anchor team of Jim Hartz and Barbara Walters), ABC sought a new approach. The network found that one of its affiliates, WEWS in Cleveland, Ohio, had been pre-empting "AM America" in favor of airing a locally produced show called "The Morning Exchange".


title: Good Morning America

text: Unlike "AM America" and "Today", "The Morning Exchange" featured an easygoing and less dramatic approach by offering news and weather updates only at the top and bottom of every hour and used the rest of the time to discuss general-interest/entertainment topics. "The Morning Exchange" also established a group of regular guests who were experts in certain fields, including health, entertainment, consumer affairs and travel. Also unlike both the NBC and ABC shows, "The Morning Exchange" was not broadcast from a newsroom set but instead one that resembled a suburban living room.


title: Good Morning America

text: In the process of screening the Cleveland morning program as a creative source, ABC also began looking at another local show, "Good Morning!", which was produced by Boston ABC affiliate WCVB-TV. "Good Morning!" was very similar in format to "The Morning Exchange", but with a lesser emphasis on news and weather. In fact, once the revamped ABC morning show took to the air late in 1975 under the title "Good Morning America", WCVB station manager Bob Bennett accused ABC entertainment president Fred Silverman of deliberately stealing the title of "Good Morning!"; no legal cease and desist action was finalized against ABC in the matter, however. The launch of "Good Morning America" did result in the Boston morning show changing its name—to "Good Day!". Currently, WCVB's morning news program is titled "EyeOpener".


title: Good Morning America

text: ABC took an episode of "The Morning Exchange" and used it as a television pilot. The format replaced "AM America" on Monday, as "Good Morning America". The first cohosts were actor David Hartman and actress Nancy Dussault. Dussault was replaced in April 1977 by previously at KABC-TV The show's title is the same as the beginning of the chorus of Steve Goodman's song "City of New Orleans".


title: Good Morning America

text: For the first seven years, weather forecasts were presented by John Coleman, former chief meteorologist for ABC owned-and-operated station WLS-TV in Chicago, who left "GMA" in 1982 to start The Weather Channel with Landmark Communications CEO Frank Batten. Dave Murray (later chief meteorologist at KTVI in St. Louis) provided the forecasts for both "Good Morning America" and ABC's early morning news program "ABC News This Morning" from 1983 to 1986. In August 1986, he was replaced by Spencer Christian, who worked at WABC-TV in New York City and served as fill-in meteorologist for both Coleman and Murray whenever they were away on vacation or assignment.


title: Good Morning America

text: The program's Nielsen ratings climbed slowly, but steadily throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s while "Today" experienced a slight slump in viewership, especially with Walters' decision to leave NBC for a job at ABC News. On August 30, 1976, Tom Brokaw began anchoring "Today" while the program began a search for a female co-host. Within a year, "Today" managed to beat back the "Good Morning America" ratings threat with Brokaw and new co-host Jane Pauley, featuring art and entertainment contributor Gene Shalit. "Good Morning America" continued to threaten "Today"s ratings dominance into the 1980s, especially after Brokaw left the latter program to become co-anchor of "NBC Nightly News" with Roger Mudd for 17 months before being named sole anchor of that program. For the first time, "Good Morning America" became the highest-rated morning news program in the United States as "Today" fell to second place.


title: Good Morning America

text: At the outset, "Good Morning America" was a talk program with a main host, Hartman, who was joined by a sidekick co-host; Dussault and Hill were scripted as less-than-equal hosts. In 1980, an exasperated Hill left "Good Morning America" after run-ins with Hartman, who was said to have "had a problem with strong women." She was replaced by Joan Lunden, then a reporter at ABC's New York City flagship WABC-TV. Hartman and Lunden led the show through several years of success. Lunden's popularity led to her promotion to co-anchor in 1986, and to more equal footing with Hartman than any woman before her. The partnership ended on February 20, 1987, when Hartman retired after 3,189 broadcasts.


title: Good Morning America

text: After Hartman's departure, Lunden was paired with ABC News correspondent Charles Gibson on February 23, 1987, which ultimately resulted in ratings for the program skyrocketing. The team of Lunden and Gibson became the most popular news partnership on television in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for the first time "Good Morning America" regularly won the ratings against "Today". At one point prior to Spencer Christian's arrival in 1986, forecasts on the program were provided by WXYZ-TV chief meteorologist Jerry Hodak via a split screen between the WXYZ studios in Detroit and the "Good Morning America" set in New York City.


title: Good Morning America

text: "Good Morning America" entered the 1990s with continued overwhelming ratings success. Gibson and Lunden became a hard team to beat; however, the program stumbled from its top spot in late 1995, falling to second place behind "Today" (in what would begin a 16-year streak as the top-rated morning news program for that show, which began the week of December 11, 1995). Lunden began to discuss working less and mentioned to network executives that the morning schedule is the hardest in the business. ABC executives promised Lunden that a prime time program; "Behind Closed Doors" would premiere on the network in 1996. That same year, Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo would appear on the show's April 9th run to promote "", featuring episodes of the show containing movies such as "Godzilla vs. Megalon".


title: Good Morning America

text: On September 5, 1997, Lunden decided to step down as host of "Good Morning America" after 17 years and was replaced by ABC News correspondent Lisa McRee. The pairing of Gibson and McRee fared well in the ratings. However, ratings sharply declined when Gibson also left the show to make way for Kevin Newman on May 1, 1998. With McRee and Newman as anchors, longtime viewers of "Good Morning America" switched to "Today", whose ratings skyrocketed.


title: Good Morning America

text: To improve "Good Morning America"s ratings performance, which briefly fell to third place among the morning shows in January 1999, ABC News management selected Shelley Ross from the field of executive producer candidates. As part of Rossʼs proposed changes, Ross ousted the McRee-Newman team and lobbied to bring in Diane Sawyer and team her with Charles Gibson, who had been reluctant to return. On January 18, 1999, the Gibson-Sawyer team paired by Ross debuted on-air, which during the first full season resulted in a dramatic increase in viewership while all other network news franchises saw losses.


title: Good Morning America

text: The show moved from the ABC News headquarters in Manhattan's Lincoln Square district to its present home at the Times Square Studios on September 13, 1999. The new location made it possible for the program to feature a live audience inside the studio, similar to the "Window on the World" set used by "Today". Under Ross, "Good Morning America" became a competitive 24/7 news operation with more exclusive bookings, news and live stock market updates for West Coast viewers and new on-screen graphics that included a news ticker. "Good Morning America" began originating entire shows from unique locations, which, according to Nielsen Media Research, resulted in more people watching the program and for longer periods of time. "GMA" became the first to originate a live show from an aircraft carrier during wartime (the USS Enterprise), from the White House (after the Columbine High School massacre), from The Pentagon (for the reopening of the wing damaged during the September 11 attacks in 2001), from The Vatican (for the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's election as Pope), and from the Tower of London (on the 50th anniversary of Elizabeth IIʼs accession to the throne). Viewership during this time increased by nearly 1 million households, and revenue soared.


title: Good Morning America

text: Although "Today" remained the top-rated morning news show, the Sawyer, Gibson and Ross team inched close, creating a viable rival. According to Linda McLoof, executive director of news research at ABC News from 2001 to 2009, "When Shelley left, her viewing momentum was initially sustained, but a season later, the audience began to decline. It is like passing the baton in a relay race." Antonio Mora served as newsreader for the program until March 18, 2002, when he left to become an anchor at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV in Chicago. He was replaced by former ESPN anchor and correspondent Robin Roberts.


title: Good Morning America

text: On May 23, 2005, ABC News announced that Robin Roberts would be promoted from newsreader to co-anchor of "Good Morning America", joining Gibson and Sawyer. Roberts had previously served as a regular substitute for Gibson and Sawyer when either of them were on vacation or on assignment. On November 3, 2005, "Good Morning America" celebrated its 30th anniversary with retrospectives on and clips from the show's history and by decorating Times Square. Former co-hosts Hartman and Lunden, along with former meteorologist Spencer Christian, were among the guests of honor. Hartman signed off the show that day with his trademark close: "From all of us, make it a good day." That same day, "Good Morning America" became the first network morning news program to begin broadcasting in high-definition television.


title: Good Morning America

text: On December 2, 2005, weather anchor Tony Perkins left the program after six years. The last ten minutes of that day's edition were dedicated to Perkins, during which he gave thanks to one of the show's producers and a heartfelt goodbye to anchors Gibson, Roberts and Sawyer. Perkins left the program to return to his family in Washington, D.C. and join Fox owned-and-operated station WTTG, where he previously served as a weather anchor. He affectionately said to his young son on-air, "Connor, if you're watching, daddy's comin' home." Perkins was replaced by Mike Barz, former WGN Morning News sports anchor at WGN-TV in Chicago.


title: Good Morning America

text: Gibson left "Good Morning America" for the second time on June 28, 2006. That day's edition was dedicated to his 19 years as anchor of the program and celebrated his new role as anchor of "ABC World News Tonight". Gibson ended his tenure at "GMA" by stating, "For nineteen years, my mornings have been not just good—they've been great."


title: Good Morning America

text: There had been speculation that Sawyer would leave "Good Morning America" when her contract expired in 2007 to assume the anchor position at "ABC World News" that was given to Gibson. In August 2006, Chris Cuomo was named news anchor while continuing his anchoring duties on the newsmagazine "Primetime" and serving as ABC News's senior legal correspondent. Meanwhile, Sam Champion, longtime evening meteorologist at WABC-TV, was named as the new weather anchor for the program and as weather editor for ABC News. Both Cuomo and Champion began their respective duties on the program on September 5, 2006, when "Good Morning America" instituted a new graphics package and new news area for Cuomo to report headlines. The following week, on September 13, 2006, the program introduced a new logo—this time with gold Avant Garde font on a blue background, which bears a resemblance to the original "Good Morning America" logo that was used up to early 1987.


title: Good Morning America

text: On June 29, 2007, the program's longtime film critic Joel Siegel died of complications from colorectal cancer at age 63. The July 9 edition of "GMA" was dedicated to Siegel, with former hosts Hartman, Hill, Lunden, Newman, Christian, Perkins and Gibson all appearing to share their memories. One month later, on July 31, 2007, Robin Roberts announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer after discovering a lump in her breast during a self-examination while preparing the Siegel tribute episode. Roberts remained as anchor while undergoing chemotherapy and completed radiation treatments on March 28, 2008.


title: Good Morning America

text: On October 22, 2007, "Good Morning America" introduced a new on-air graphics package. Using much of the design features of its former graphics, it went from a basic blue background to a more orangish-gold setting. The program's opening changed from the camera's zooming in on the hosts while introducing the host to an opening with new music (by the New York City-based music production company DreamArtists Studios) and a background with the "Good Morning America" logo descending onto the frame. It also changed its news ticker and time-and-temperature bug for the first time in years. The ticker featured an orange background with a modified ABC News logo as a breakpoint for each headline. The bug still featured the time and current local temperature to the left, but with an orange backdrop with an alternate "GMA" logo and the ABCNews.com logo to the right.


title: Good Morning America

text: On January 15, 2008, during an interview with Diane Sawyer on the program, actress Diane Keaton commented on Sawyer's physical attractiveness, stating that if she had lips like Sawyer's, "then I wouldn't have worked on my "[expletive]" personality!" Keaton quickly apologized for the remark and Sawyer jokingly threatened to have her mother "work on your personality with soap in your mouth." Officials with the Federal Communications Commission declined to take action for the fleeting expletive. Following the death of Michael Jackson, Charles Gibson returned to the "Good Morning America" anchor desk with Roberts on June 26, 2009, while Sawyer was away.


title: Good Morning America

text: In September 2008, "Good Morning America"s anchors rode an Amtrak train to tour the United States as part of ABC Newss "50 States in 50 Days" event, for which the program was broadcast from different locations around the U.S. each day throughout that month. The tour's first telecast stop was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.


title: Good Morning America

text: On September 2, 2009, ABC announced that Sawyer would replace Gibson as anchor of "ABC World News" at the end of that year. Speculation had abounded that either George Stephanopoulos, news anchor Chris Cuomo, weekend anchor Bill Weir, or "World News" Saturday anchor David Muir would replace Sawyer on the program. Representatives for ABC News stated that it wanted to return the show to the original male-female anchor format. On December 10, 2009, Stephanopoulos was announced as Sawyer's replacement, with Juju Chang replacing Cuomo as newsreader; the changes took effect four days later on December 14.


title: Good Morning America

text: In April 2010, the anchor desk in the studio was relocated back in front of the window overlooking Times Square, where it had been when "Good Morning America" moved to the Times Square Studios facility in 1999; the news desk was also moved in front of a window. On May 3, 2010, the program debuted new "light blue and sunny" graphics, and new theme music by DreamArtists Studios. An entirely new set for the program was introduced on January 31, 2011; the monitor used for national weather segments (used mainly during the 7:00 a.m. hour only) was moved closer to the anchor desk while the news desk remained in the same place. This was the first major set change since the show upgraded to high definition in November 2005.


title: Good Morning America

text: On February 25, 2011 James Goldston moved from "Nightline" to become Senior Executive Producer of "GMA". On March 17, 2011, ABC News President Ben Sherwood announced that former "GMA" national correspondent Lara Spencer would be rejoining the program in May in a newly created lifestyle anchor position. On March 29, 2011, ESPN anchor Josh Elliott was named news anchor of the program following the departure of Juju Chang.


title: Good Morning America

text: In the summer of 2011, "Good Morning America" decided to vacate the second floor of the Times Square studios, which overlooked Times Square, due to cost issues. On September 6, 2011, the program began broadcasting from an entirely new studio set located on the first floor (ground level) of the Times Square studios. The main "window" behind the presenters in the new set, which also shows a view overlooking Times Square from an above-ground level, is actually a back-projection, although there are several real windows used in other parts of the set.


title: Good Morning America

text: Amid declining ratings at "Today" in the aftermath of reports of Matt Lauer's alleged role in Ann Curry's departure as co-host (though ratings had been in a steady decline for that program during Curry's co-hosting tenure), viewership for "Good Morning America" increased starting in 2012. The program beat "Today" for the first time in 16 years during the week of April 9, 2012, ending that program's streak of 852 consecutive weeks as the most-watched network morning news program, by a margin of 31,000 more viewers than the NBC program. "Good Morning America" beat "Today" once again during the week of April 16, 2012, by a much larger margin of 166,000 viewers.


title: Good Morning America

text: During the week of April 1, 2012, ABC News special correspondent Katie Couric, who had recently joined the network as part of a deal to host a syndicated talk show distributed by corporate sister Disney–ABC Domestic Television, filled for Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America". Couric had hosted the rival NBC morning program "Today" from 1991 to 2006; her "Good Morning America" stint marked her return to morning news after six years.


title: Good Morning America

text: On August 30, 2012, Roberts went on medical leave after undergoing a bone marrow transplant (donated by her sister and fellow news anchor SallyAnn Roberts) following her diagnosis with myelodysplastic syndrome. "GMA" correspondent Amy Robach and "20/20" anchor Elizabeth Vargas served as the primary substitutes, typically alternating every other week. Others, including some celebrities, also served as special guest anchors during this time such as Kelly Ripa, Jessica Simpson, Barbara Walters and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. On January 14, 2013, Roberts announced that she hoped to return to the program sometime that February; Roberts performed dry run rehearsals during the week of January 21 in preparation for her return; she and her doctors evaluated her body's reaction to the makeup, the lighting, her hair, and the number of people she comes in contact with to avoid compromising her then-gradually-improving health. Roberts returned to "Good Morning America" part-time on February 20, 2013; she announced in August 2013 that she would return to full-time hosting duties on September 3 of that year.


title: Good Morning America

text: In 2013, "GMA" won its first Nielsen ratings in 18 years. On December 4, 2013, weather anchor Sam Champion departed "Good Morning America" and ABC News after seven years on the program to join The Weather Channel, where he became primary anchor of the competing morning program "America's Morning Headquarters" (which debuted in March 2014). He was succeeded the following day by Ginger Zee, who had been serving as meteorologist for the weekend editions of "GMA" and was also appointed to Champion's former position as weather editor for ABC News.


title: Good Morning America

text: On March 30, 2014, news anchor Josh Elliott left ABC News after three years as news anchor of "GMA" to become a correspondent for NBC Sports, amid reports that contract negotiations to increase his annual salary (from $1.2 million to $8 million) broke down; Elliott was replaced as news anchor by Amy Robach later that week. The program continued to dominate over the competition, even with the loss of two major co-hosts in Champion and Elliott.


title: Good Morning America

text: In early April 2014, several media reports speculated that Michael Strahan would be joining "GMA" as a contributing anchor, while maintaining his co-host duties on "Live! with Kelly and Michael" (which is also syndicated by Disney–ABC Domestic Television). Strahan's new position was confirmed on April 15, 2014, when he was introduced to the audience as the new contributing anchor on the program.


title: Good Morning America

text: On April 18, 2014, Lara Spencer was promoted to co-anchor effective immediately, receiving top billing on the program alongside Roberts and Stephanopoulos.


title: Good Morning America

text: In September 2014, former NFL player Tim Tebow was announced to be joining the program as a part-time correspondent to help launch the new segment, "Motivate Me Mondays". He made his debut on the program on September 15, 2014.


title: Good Morning America

text: On November 19, 2015, the program celebrated its 40th anniversary, with all the main anchors and most of the news and weather anchors returning to join the celebration and share their stories. Clips from all 40 years were shown.


title: Good Morning America

text: On April 19, 2016, Strahan announced that he would be leaving "Live! with Kelly and Michael" to join "Good Morning America" full-time.


title: Good Morning America

text: On September 6, 2016, Michael Strahan began his run as official full-time co-anchor of the program along with Roberts, Stephanopoulos, and Spencer. A new title sequence was debuted not including Spencer's name. The first hour focuses on the news of the morning anchored by Roberts, Stephanopulos, and Strahan. Zee does segments of the weather and Robach reads the morning headlines. The second hour is in the second floor studio and is taped in front of a live studio audience. It focuses on "soft news" and entertainment. It is anchored by the three main co-anchors (including Spencer) and features guests and talk show panel discussion.


title: Good Morning America

text: In April 2018, it was announced that Spencer would cut back on her hours on "GMA" from five days a week to three to focus on her own projects.


title: Good Morning America

text: On May 23, 2018, an afternoon extension of "GMA" (originally titled "GMA Day", now known as "GMA3") was announced as a replacement in the fall of 2018 for the cancelled cooking series "The Chew" in the 1:00 p.m. ET/noon CT timeslot.


title: Good Morning America

text: In April 2022, Roberts celebrated her 20th anniversary with "Good Morning America", during which an on-air celebration was held with Roberts being honored with a plaque featuring her name on the grounds of Time Square.


title: Good Morning America

text: "Good Night America" was a late night talk show/news magazine hosted by Geraldo Rivera in the 1970s as part of ABC's late night line up also ABC's "Wide World Special". Though not exactly like "GMA" it was more of a talk show format, with guests and interviewing them and also topics of current events, with Rivera ending the show with commentary. After "Good Night America" went off the air, Rivera still worked for ABC eventually working for "Good Morning America" when it premiered in November 1975, while still working for ABC News and its other shows such as "Nightline" and "20/20".


title: Good Morning America

text: A special summer afternoon edition of "Good Morning America", titled "Good Afternoon America", premiered on July 9, 2012, as a temporary replacement for the canceled talk/lifestyle show "The Revolution" in the 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time weekday slot.


title: Good Morning America

text: "Good Afternoon America" was taped immediately after the morning program and focused on lighter fare, with the exception of the July 20 edition, which provided live coverage of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting. Like its morning counterpart, "Good Afternoon America" originated from Times Square Studios. The limited-run program, which ended on September 7, 2012, was hosted by then "Good Morning America" news anchor Josh Elliott and lifestyle anchor Lara Spencer.


title: Good Morning America

text: "GMA Wake Up Call" is a pre-morning show hosted by Ginger Zee. Substitute hosts include Rob Marciano. This spin-off is a lead in to the actual GMA program airing live stream on social media outlets. The show airs between 6:45 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. ET and runs for 10–15 minutes.


title: Good Morning America

text: "GMA Lunch Break" is a half-hour afternoon show airing on social media outlets between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. also hosted by Zee. This focuses on a featured lunch recipe.


title: Good Morning America

text: "GMA Deals" airs on social media outlets on select days at 8:30 a.m. Hosted by Zee and Tory Johnson, it is an extension of the show's popular segment where influencers and other representatives of companies demonstrate products on-air and offer deal of the day on the offered product or service.


title: Good Morning America

text: "GMA3" is a spinoff/third hour of "GMA" that was originally hosted by Michael Strahan and Sara Haines. The show premiered on September 10, 2018, under the title of "GMA Day", and later became known as "GMA3" on January 28, 2019, with "Strahan and Sara" being the subtitle. On August 26, 2019, after filling in as a summer co-host during Haines' maternity leave, actress and singer Keke Palmer joined as a permanent third co-host and the show took the subtitle of "Strahan, Sara and Keke" until March 2020, when it became "GMA3: What You Need to Know", an hour-long news program hosted by Amy Robach that originally covered the COVID-19 pandemic. Later in 2020, Palmer and industry insiders announced the "Strahan, Sara and Keke" incarnation of the program would not return and was, in effect, cancelled.


title: Good Morning America

text: In Australia, until 2018, Nine Network broadcast "Good Morning America" on its stations in metropolitan areas, Northern NSW and it’s regional affiliate from 2016 to 2021 Nine Regional and before 2016 and also 2021–present WIN Television on a one-day delay (by way of Australia and the United States being on different ends of the International Date Line) each Tuesday through Friday from 3.30 to 5:00, Saturdays from 5.30 to 7:00, Sundays from 6:00 to 7:00 and Monday mornings from 4:00 to 5:00 a.m. The Nine broadcasts featured a map providing forecasts for Australia in place of the national U.S. weather map (which itself is also, in a separate feature within the main weather segment, used as a cutaway to weather updates provided by local ABC affiliates). However, as of July 3, 2018, Nine no longer airs the show. Although it aired at the same time as Seven Network and Network 10's broadcasts of NBC's "Today" and "CBS Mornings" (including its predecessor, "CBS This Morning"), "Good Morning America"s broadcasts by Nine were unchallenged ratings-wise in some regions where other affiliates preempt their networks' U.S. breakfast programs with paid and religious programming.


title: Good Morning America

text: OSN airs "Good Morning America" on OSN First HD live each weekday at 5:00 Time in the United Arab Emirates / 4:00 Saudi Arabia Standard Time in the Middle East and North Africa Countries.


title: Good Morning America

text: In 1992 and 1993, "Good Morning America" won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk/Service Show. In 21st GLAAD Media Awards, the program was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding TV Journalism Segment" for the segment "Total Transformation: Why Chaz Bono Decided to Change". At the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards, the program was again nominated for the "Outstanding TV Journalism Segment" category for the segment "Dwyane Wade One-On-One: Basketball Legend Opens Up About Supporting Transgender Daughter."


title: Pesto

text: Pesto () is a sauce that traditionally consists of crushed garlic, European pine nuts, coarse salt, basil leaves, and hard cheese such as Parmigiano-Reggiano (also known as Parmesan cheese) or Pecorino Sardo (cheese made from sheep's milk), all blended with olive oil. It originated in Genoa, the capital city of Liguria, Italy.


title: Pesto

text: The name pesto is the past participle of the Genoese verb (Italian: ), which means "to pound", "to crush", in reference to the original method of preparation. According to tradition, the ingredients are "crushed" or ground in a marble mortar through a circular motion of a wooden pestle. This same Latin root, through Old French, also gave rise to the English noun "pestle". Incidentally, the Latin root seems to be similar to the Sanskrit adjective "pishta" (, ), which means to "ground", "pounded", "crushed".


title: Pesto

text: Strictly speaking, "pesto" is a generic term for anything that is made by pounding; that is why the word is used for several pestos in Italy. Nonetheless, "pesto alla genovese" ("Genoese pesto") remains the most popular pesto in Italy and the rest of the world.


title: Pesto

text: Pesto is thought to have two predecessors in ancient times, going back as far as the Roman age. The ancient Romans used to eat a similar paste called moretum, which was made by crushing garlic, salt, cheese, herbs, olive oil, and vinegar (and sometimes pine nuts) together. The use of this paste in the Roman cuisine is mentioned in the "Appendix Vergiliana", an ancient collection of poems in which the author details the preparation of "moretum". During the Middle Ages, a popular sauce in the Genoan cuisine was "agliata", which was basically a mash of garlic and walnuts, as garlic was a staple in the nutrition of Ligurians, especially for the seafarers.


title: Pesto

text: The introduction of basil, the main ingredient of modern pesto, occurred in more recent times and is first documented only in the mid-19th century, when gastronomist Giovanni Battista Ratto published his book "La Cuciniera Genovese" in 1863:


title: Pesto

text: "Take a clove of garlic, basil or, when that is lacking, marjoram and parsley, grated Dutch and Parmigiano cheese and mix them with pine nuts and crush it all together in a mortar with a little butter until reduced to a paste. Then dissolve it with good and abundant oil. Lasagne and Trofie are dressed with this mash, made more liquid by adding a little hot water without salt."


title: Pesto

text: Although likely originating from and being domesticated in India, basil took the firmest root in the regions of Liguria, Italy, and Provence, France. It was abundant in this part of Italy, though only when in season, which is why marjoram and parsley are suggested as alternatives when basil is lacking. Ratto mentions Dutch cheese ("formaggio olandese") instead of Pecorino Sardo since Northern European cheeses were actually common in Genoa at the time, thanks to the centuries-long commercial trades of the maritime republic.


title: Pesto

text: This recipe for "pesto alla genovese" was often revised in the following years (a noted revision by Emanuele Rossi occurred in 1865, only a couple of years after Ratto's "Cuciniera"), and it shortly became a staple in the Ligurian culinary tradition, with each family often featuring its own pesto recipe (with slight differences to the traditional ingredients). This is the main reason why pesto recipes often differ from each other.


title: Pesto

text: Recipes for pesto began circulating in American newspapers as early as the late 1920s, per a syndicated recipe by George Rector that was copyrighted in 1928. In 1944, "The New York Times" mentioned an imported canned pesto paste. In 1946, "Sunset" magazine published a pesto recipe by Angelo Pellegrini. Pesto did not become popular in North America until the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Pesto

text: Pesto is traditionally prepared in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle. First, garlic and pine nuts are placed in the mortar and reduced to a cream, and then the washed and dried basil leaves are added with coarse salt and ground to a creamy consistency. Only then is a mix of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino added. To help incorporate the cheese a little extra-virgin olive oil is added. In a tight jar (or simply in an air-tight plastic container), covered by a layer of extra-virgin olive oil, pesto can last in the refrigerator up to a week, and can be frozen for later use.


title: Pesto

text: Pesto is commonly used on pasta, traditionally with "mandilli de sæa" ("silk handkerchiefs" in the Genoese dialect), trofie or trenette. Potatoes and string beans are also traditionally added to the dish, boiled in the same pot in which the pasta has been cooked. Pasta, mixed with pesto, has become a well-known dish in many countries today, with countless recipes being posted online for "pasta with pesto".


title: Pesto

text: It is used in Genovese minestrone. Outside of Italy, pesto is sometimes served with sliced beef, tomatoes, and sliced boiled potatoes.


title: Pesto

text: Pesto comes in a variety of recipes, some traditional and some modern, as the very noun "pesto" is a generic term for anything that is made by pounding.


title: Pesto

text: The original "pesto alla genovese", the quintessential pesto recipe, is made with Genovese basil, coarse salt, garlic, Ligurian extra virgin olive oil (Taggiasco), European pine nuts (sometimes toasted) and a grated cheese like Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano and Pecorino Sardo or Pecorino Romano. A proposal is under preparation by the Palatifini Association to have pesto alla genovese included in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list. There is a biennial international Genovese Pesto al Mortaio competition in which 100 finalists use traditional mortars and pestles as well as the above ingredients which are then assessed by 30 local and international judges.


title: Pesto

text: A slightly different version of this sauce exists in Provence, where it is known as "pistou". In contrast to "pesto alla genovese", "pistou" is generally made with olive oil, basil and garlic only: while cheese may be added, usually no nuts are included in a traditional "pistou" because no pine trees grow there to provide the nuts. "Pistou" is used in the typical "soupe au pistou", a hearty vegetable soup with "pistou" flavour. The sauce did not originally contain basil, however; instead, cheese and olive oil were the main constituents.


title: Pesto

text: Outside of Italy sometimes, almond, Brazil, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pistachio, walnut, or even peanuts are used instead of pine nuts, and sometimes coriander, dill, kale, mint, parsley, rocket, spinach, or wild garlic leaves are mixed in with the basil leaves. It has been pointed out that any combination of flavourful leaves, oily nuts, hard cheese, olive oil, garlic, salt and lemon juice can produce a pesto-like condiment.


title: Pesto

text: "Pesto alla siciliana", sometimes called "pesto rosso" (red pesto), is a sauce from Sicily similar to "pesto alla genovese" but with the addition of tomato and almonds instead of pine nuts, and much less basil.


title: Pesto

text: "Pesto alla calabrese" is a sauce from Calabria consisting of (grilled) bell peppers, black pepper and more; these ingredients give it a distinctively spicy taste.


title: Pesto

text: Outside Italy, the household name "pesto" has been used for all sorts of cold sauces or dips, mostly without any of the original ingredients: coriander, dill, kale, mint, parsley, rocket, spinach, or wild garlic (instead of or in addition to basil), artichokes, black olives, green olives, lemon peel, lime peel, or mushrooms. In more northern countries, ramson leaves are sometimes used instead of basil. In the 19th century, Genovese immigrants to Argentina brought pesto recipes with them. A Peruvian variety, known as "tallarines verdes" (meaning "green noodles", from Italian "tagliarini"), is slightly creamier, lacks pine nuts (because of their rarity and prohibitive cost in Peru), may use spinach and vegetable oil (in place of olive oil), and is sometimes served with roasted potatoes and sirloin steak.


title: Pesto

text: Vegan variations of pesto can include mixes of fresh basil, pine nuts or other nuts, olive oil, and the addition of miso paste and nutritional yeast to provide additional flavour enhancement to the dish.


title: Pesto

text: For reasons of expense or availability, almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pistachio, walnut, or even peanuts are sometimes substituted for the traditional pine nuts. Also, while the nuts are traditionally used raw, some recipes call for prior toasting or roasting. While not traditional, other nuts may be used due to the taste disturbances that some people may experience after consuming pine nuts (see pine mouth). Many online recipes in English for pesto will also list black pepper or white pepper among the ingredients, which are not present in the traditional Genoese recipe.


title: Pesto

text: For reasons of expense, in pestos sold in supermarkets, the extra virgin olive oil is often replaced with cheaper oils such as, corn oil, cottonseed oil, grapeseed oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, safflower oil, soya oil, sunflower oil, or other vegetable oils. Some manufacturers of pesto for European supermarkets also use filling material like potato flakes or potato starch which, however, also softens the traditionally strong flavour.


title: Anagram

text: An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word "anagram" itself can be rearranged into "nag a ram", also the word "binary" into "brainy" and the word "adobe" into "abode".


title: Anagram

text: The original word or phrase is known as the "subject" of the anagram. Any word or phrase that exactly reproduces the letters in another order is an anagram. Someone who creates anagrams may be called an "anagrammatist", and the goal of a serious or skilled anagrammatist is to produce anagrams that reflect or comment on their subject.


title: Anagram

text: Anagrams may be created as a commentary on the subject. They may be a parody, a criticism or satire. For example:


title: Anagram

text: An anagram that has a meaning opposed to that of the original word or phrase is called an "antigram". For example:


title: Anagram

text: Anagrams can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greeks, and were used to find the hidden and mystical meaning in names.


title: Anagram

text: They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, for example with the poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. They are said to date back at least to the Greek poet Lycophron, in the third century BCE; but this relies on an account of Lycophron given by John Tzetzes in the 12th century.