Heath Hen
(Tympanuchus cupido cupido)

Owing to intense hunting pressure, the population declined rapidly. Perhaps as early as the 1840s, at any rate by 1870, all Heath Hens were extirpated on the mainland. There were about 300 left on the island of Martha's Vineyard, off Massachusetts, but by 1890 this number had declined to 120-200 birds, mainly due to predation by feral cats and poaching. By the late 1800s, there were about 70 left.

These were protected by a hunting ban and the 1908 establishment of the "Heath Hen Reserve" (today the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest) and the population rapidly grew to almost 2000; by the mid-1910s, observing the birds on their lekking grounds had become something of a tourist attraction. However, a destructive fire during the 1916 nesting season, severe winters, inbreeding, an excess number of male individuals and apparently an epidemic of blackhead disease which might have been transmitted by poultry brought the numbers down quickly; after a last recovery to 600 in 1920, the population began its final decline.

In 1927, only about a dozen were left - a mere two being females - despite being afforded the best protection according to contemporary science, and that number had declined to a handful, all males, by the end of the year. After December 8, 1928, apparently only one male survived (Gross, 1931), lovingly nicknamed "Booming Ben". He was last seen on his traditional lekking ground between West Tisbury and today's Martha's Vineyard Airport on March 11, 1932 - early in the breeding season -, and thus presumably died, about 8 years old, days or only hours afterwards from unknown causes.

Heath Hens were one of the first bird species that Americans tried to save from extinction. As early as 1791, a bill "for the preservation of heath-hen and other game" was introduced in the New York legislature[1]. Although the effort to save the Heath Hen from extinction was ultimately unsuccessful, it paved the way for conservation of other species. Ironically, the establishment of the reserve on the open shrubland of what was then called the Great Plain may have accelerated the Heath Hen's extinction. Fires were a normal part of the environment, but with the attempt to suppress fires instead of enforcing ecological succession with controlled burns, habitat quality decreased and undergrowth accumulated until a normally limited fire would have disastrous consequences as it did in 1916.

Realizing the degradation that has affected the State Forest (and although it does hold remarkable biodiversity, prevents it from being utilized to its full potential), reestablishment of the original shrubland/heath/woods mosaic and eventual reintroduction of Greater Prairie Chickens as an "umbrella species" that serves as an indicator of good habitat quality is being discussed since the late 1990s.
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Heath Hen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The last birds were wiped out by a series of relatively common, but deadly, natural events: fire, starvation, predation, and disease. But the heath hen's continued existence as a species would not have been so vulnerable to these occurrences if their populations had not been severely reduced already by human hunting. In its former range, the heath hen easily could have survived any one of these stresses, or even all of them in combination. This also shows that designating a protective zone, or prohibiting the direct killing of an endangered species, does not guarantee survival of the species.
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Disappearance

n 1921 a disease carried by domestic chickens spread to the heath hen population and their number dropped to 100 birds. By 1927 there were only 13 heath hens left. The last heath hen died in 1932.
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Nature Works-Extinct North American Species

During colonial times, the heath hen had been found in such abundance that "servants stipulated with their employers not to have Heath Hen brought to the table oftener than a few times a week." By 1791, however, the New York legislature considered "an Act for the preservation of the heath hen and other game," and by 1880 the bird had vanished from even the most remote woods on the mainland, and only 200 heath hens could be found on the island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. A forest fire destroyed much of the hens' breeding ground in 1907, reducing their number to 77. The public responded to an appeal for funds, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts set up a 1,600-acre reserve and hired a warden to stop hunting by both humans and animals. He conscientiously performed his duties, and a count of 2,000 hens in April, 1916, was cause for celebration, but a fire blazed across the breeding grounds a month later. The females refused to leave their nests, even when threatened by flames, so most of the 105 survivors were males. A bone-chilling winter was followed by an invasion of hawks, and the 1917 census of heath hens showed that the total number had dipped below 100. The industrious warden swung into action again, and in 1920 the birds' population hit 600. Then something went wrong. The 1927 count was below 30, and the confused warden started tinkering with every variable that could possibly affect the birds' well-being until it was discovered that most of the males were sterile, and soon the females were similarly afflicted. One male survived until 1932, and he was last seen on Mar. 11. The heath hen colony on Martha's Vineyard had been too small and vulnerable to pull through, even with last-minute assistance from humans.
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Extinct Animals The Health Hen

So pretty!