Extinct passenger pigeon checks in at Brodsworth Hall

 A bird which went the way of the Dodo has caused a flap by turning up in a English Heritage collection of stuffed animals at Brodsworth Hall, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

The so-called North American "passenger pigeon" was decimated by hunting in the 19th century, despite numbering over five billion when Europeans first arrived in the New World.

Now a rare stuffed specimen has been found at the stately home and will be on display to the public ready for the start of the new visitor season on 1 April.

Brodsworth Hall has been described as the most complete Victorian country house in England, a `time-capsule’ retaining many of its original fittings. The job of cataloguing the thousands of items is still on-going. But unearthing an extinct creature – even a stuffed one - was the last thing curators expected to discover!

The find came to light after a survey of the Hall’s collection by local taxidermy expert, Martin Limbert, Natural Science Officer at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery. He identified the sleek-looking pigeon in its original case in the Lathe Room, where it sat amongst stuffed weasels, pheasants and badgers - a veritable "stuffed zoo" revealing the Victorian zeal for taxidermy which peaked at the turn of the 20th century.

Martin Limbert explained: "The collection as a whole is extremely unusual because it’s so complete and hasn’t been broken up and dispersed. The pigeon took my eye straight away, as it’s a very elegant bird, and very few stuffed examples survive outside natural history museums. It finally died out in 1914, which is incredibly sad and a reminder of how species can crash when they are persecuted on such a large scale."

The primary cause behind the pigeon’s demise was hunting. Its meat was a cheap food source for both slaves and the poor in the 19th century. The last bird was a captive specimen called "Martha" which died in a zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Crosby Stevens, English Heritage Curator at Brodsworth Hall, said:

"Brodsworth Hall and Gardens is full of surprises. Collecting was a Victorian passion and some of the stuffed items were imported, including it seems the unfortunate passenger pigeon. Others were local and the survey revealed that we have an outstanding collection of work by Doncaster taxidermist, Joseph Thompson Storrs, who had a workshop in the town at the time when Brodsworth was built in about 1865. In the days before television, colour photography and widespread tourism, taxidermy was often the only way to come face-to-face with exotic wildlife. Now sadly it’s our only chance to admire an extinct bird."