These Five Birds Have Disappeared Forever. Their History Offers a Valuable Lesson for the Future

In an exhibition celebrating the natural history of the United States, a small group of taxidermy birds stands as a reminder of loss—and a symbol of hope

Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science

October 5, 2026 1:38 p.m.

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A search party of scientists and volunteers traipsed through hardwood forest, eyes and ears peeled for birds. On several mornings in March and April 2002, they scoured South Carolina’s Congaree National Park, stopping every 400 feet to play recordings of a distinctive call: a repeated, buzzy “zeep.”

The sound, belonging to the olive, black and yellow Bachman’s warbler, had been recently reported in the area by an experienced birder. The species was known to be secretive, typically skulking low in the brush, but the experts felt sure that if the birds were there, they would respond to the audio. Despite 166 hours of searching through 3,900 acres of forest, however, none of the target warblers called back.

It seemed that the birds were nowhere to be found—but that wasn’t much of a surprise. No one had confidently documented a Bachman’s warbler in decades. The most recent specimen had been collected from Mississippi in 1949, and the last confirmed sightings had been between 1958 and 1961 around Charleston, South Carolina. In 2023, with no further evidence that any of its kind were alive, the Bachman’s warbler was declared extinct by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Though the species may now be gone from the wild, a taxidermy specimen is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, alongside a group of other birds representing living and extinct biodiversity from across the country. The exhibition where the specimens are found, “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage,” brings together an eclectic collection from the museum’s shelves that totals more than 600 natural history objects from all 50 states; Washington, D.C.; and five U.S. territories.

Alongside wonders like a fossilized mastodon tooth, shimmering ammonites and wild rice, the collection features five extinct birds. Beyond the Bachman’s warbler, visitors can see the heath hen, Kauai oo and Carolina parakeet, as well as Martha, the last passenger pigeon.

These birds are meant to be a gateway that could prompt viewers to ask questions about their extinctions, says Torben Rick, curator of North American archaeology at the museum. “We hope to draw people in and then get them to think about these issues a little more in-depth outside of the exhibit.”

Although they no longer fly in our skies or make calls in our forests, the displayed specimens are still capable of teaching scientists crucial information about birds and their ecosystems—and inspiring conservation action from people around the world.

Museum specimens of extinct species “act as a window into the past, showing us both what has been lost and what is still worth protecting,” says Rob Cooke, an ecological modeler at the U.K. Center for Ecology & Hydrology. “They are a powerful warning of how human activities can reshape ecosystems, but also a source of knowledge that can help guide better decisions for the future.”

Birds currently live a precarious existence. A September report from BirdLife International found that 45 percent of migratory bird species are in decline worldwide, and one in nine of them are threatened with extinction. Climate change, which is shifting habitat conditions at a staggering pace, is putting two-thirds of North American birds at a rising risk of disappearing forever.

And in the past 130,000 years, at least 1,300 to 1,500 bird species have gone extinct, dying out in multiple waves linked to human expansion. That finding comes from a 2023 study that combined documented extinctions with modeled estimates based on the fossil record. It was a number twice as high as scientists had previously thought.

“The fact that so many extinctions happened without a trace is important, because it changes our understanding of the world we live in today,” says Cooke, who led the 2023 research. “We are already living in a quieter and emptier world than most people realize.”

Those bygone birds probably filled roles in the ecosystem that have now also been lost or altered, he adds, such as dispersing seeds or pollinating plants. “Every surviving species therefore becomes more important,” Cooke says.

Most bird extinctions—about 90 percent of them—occurred on islands, where the species have small ranges and are highly vulnerable to unfamiliar predators. Such was the case for the Kauai oo, one of five species of Hawaiian honeyeater, all of which are extinct. Habitat destruction, mosquito-borne disease and invasive mammal predators contributed to the bird’s demise.

The species “was so loud and vocal that it was synonymous with the forests of Kauai,” says Chris Milensky, bird collection manager at the National Museum of Natural History. “The local people there talk about that a lot, how the forests have gone silent without the songs of the Kauai oo.”

Though they lived in different areas, the other spotlighted birds share similar stories. The heath hen, a subspecies of the greater prairie-chicken, was hunted by humans until only one population remained, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Then, a series of unfortunate events—a fire, a severe winter, predators and disease—ultimately wiped out the only ones that were left. The Carolina parakeet also disappeared, driven to extinction by deforestation, hunting, disease and the pet trade. Scientists don’t know for sure what happened to the Bachman’s warbler, but habitat destruction in its breeding and wintering grounds likely played a role.

“In one way or another, these extinctions are related to human factors, whether it’s our habitat clearance, overhunting or the introduction of a predator,” Rick says.

But the birds on display at the museum aren’t just reminders of loss—they’re also ongoing sources of information for researchers. “They represent so much value for future science,” Rick says. The museum’s collections are being studied “all the time,” he adds, often by outside researchers from other institutions.

Taking measurements of these specimens can reveal historical avian anatomy. And small samples of their tissue, such as from a toe pad, can hold “an entire genome,” Milensky says. “Without the specimen, you of course wouldn’t be able to do that at all.”

A genome can uncover relationships between extinct and living species, Rick adds, and in some cases, it could show a genetic bottleneck prior to an extinction. From clippings of the feathers, researchers can conduct stable isotope analysis, a study of versions of the same element with different masses. With this data, they can reconstruct birds’ diets and migration patterns, as well as the conditions of their environment.

“The sky is really the limit,” Rick says. “Every so often, there’s a new breakthrough, a new technique or technology that someone wants to apply,” to researching bird specimens, he adds. “They can come and analyze these collections, and they’ll be here in perpetuity.”

The preserved birds also serve an educational purpose, communicating key lessons from history to the public. Some of them “may be the only direct evidence that a bird ever existed,” Cooke says.

Perhaps the strongest lesson they hold is that humans have a powerful influence on the planet, and while collective action has led to the loss of species, it can also be used for the better.

To demonstrate that fact, the exhibition takes the extinction of the passenger pigeon—the quintessential story of species loss, often told as a “cautionary tale,” Rick says—and connects it to a reason for hope.

Once so abundant that flocks would darken the sky and take hours to pass overhead, the passenger pigeon went from being the most populous bird in North America, and maybe the world, to being entirely eradicated in just a few decades. Out-of-control hunting and habitat destruction devastated the species until its population had crashed beyond repair.

In a last-ditch effort to recover the birds, some conservationists tried to breed the surviving individuals in captivity, but it was too late. The last male died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1910, and the world’s last passenger pigeon, named Martha, died at the same zoo in 1914.

Now, Martha sits in a display case at the museum—next to a specimen of the Guam rail. This island-dwelling bird once stood on the brink of extinction, and it spent 40 years classified as “extinct in the wild.” But while the passenger pigeon’s breeding program never took off, the Guam rail has made a remarkable recovery due to the breeding and reintroduction efforts of experts around the globe.

This juxtaposition, Rick hopes, can show visitors that, despite the existing losses, all remaining birds are not doomed.

“While we have the propensity to do these things that are incredibly negative,” Rick says, “when we go back to the Guam rail, we have this real ability to right that ship and course-correct.”

And the rail isn’t alone—even for other species that are at risk, he hopes the exhibition will demonstrate that we can improve their outcome. “With the proper intervention, with the focus, with the science that we do and the specimens that we have here at the museum, these are things that we can really change,” he says.

Carlyn Kranking is Smithsonian magazine's associate web editor for science.