Carolina Parakeet

The Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States. It was found from the Ohio Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, and lived in old forests along rivers. It was a colourful bird with green body, yellow head and red around the bill.

With the spread of agriculture, this brilliantly coloured bird developed a liking for the seeds of many kinds of fruit and grain crops. This, and its habit of gathering in great destructive flocks, led to its downfall - it was condemned as a pest and subjected to wholesale slaughter. Many were also sold as pets.

Once common in the southeastern United States, the Carolina parakeet became increasingly scarce as deforestation reduced its habitat. Already rare by the mid 1880s, its last stand was in Florida, where, in 1920, a flock of 30 birds was the last ever seen of the only native parrot of the United States.