Changes

:''"...the Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few hours, and have procured a basketful of these birds at a few shots, in order to make choice of good specimens for drawing the figures by which this species is represented in the plate now under your consideration."''<ref>http://web4.audubon.org/bird/boa/F28_G1a.html</ref>

:''"...the Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few hours, and have procured a basketful of these birds at a few shots, in order to make choice of good specimens for drawing the figures by which this species is represented in the plate now under your consideration."''<ref>http://web4.audubon.org/bird/boa/F28_G1a.html</ref>

   

The birds noticeably declined in the mid-1800's due to the shotgun and the clearing of forested areas. Able to be tamed and mimic words, the pet trade made inroads into its numbers as did a new trade: the millinery industry.  So many parakeets were killed so that their colorful plumage could be a part of women's fashion that their remaining numbers fell to the point of no return.  The last captive bird, a male named "Incas", died on February 21, 1918.  Sporadic, unconfirmed sightings of single birds and small flock occurred throughout the 1920's.  In 1939, the bird was officially declared extinct.

 

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