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Who was Martha, the last known passenger pigeon?

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Replica of a woolly mammoth with long curved tusks and shaggy fur on display in a museum exhibit, set against a dramatic painted landscape backdrop. — de-extinction The woolly mammoth (*Mammuthus primigenius*)—represented here by a replica in a Canadian museum—is an example of an extinct species that someday could be resurrected through de-extinction.

Martha was the last known representative of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), a species that was once abundant in North America but was hunted to extinction by humans. She died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, marking the official extinction of the species.1

Today, the passenger pigeon is considered a high-profile candidate for de-extinction, a field that explores using advanced genetic technologies to resurrect species that have died out. While the prospect of de-extinction offers a potential way to rectify past human-induced harms, it also raises significant ethical concerns regarding the alteration of natural history, the welfare of resurrected animals, and the potential to inadvertently diminish current conservation efforts.2