Almost 100 years since Martha – the world’s last Passenger Pigeon – died in captivity – her relative, the Turtle Dove, is disappearing before our very eyes They smothered the horizon in billion-strong flocks, four miles long and a mile wide. So titanic was their passing overhead that they turned day into temporary night. So vast were their colonies that sites stretched for 70 miles or more. So dense were their congregations that droppings lay a foot deep below their perches.

Everything about the Passenger Pigeon, the most abundant bird in history, was on an epic scale – a fact that makes their rapid decline and extinction within just a few decades all the more tragic.

Almost 100 years ago to the day, Martha, the world’s last Passenger Pigeon, died in captivity at Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. A century later, the Turtle Dove seems destined to follow Martha and her kin into extinction, before our supposedly environmentally enlightened eyes.

The beginning of the end for the Passenger Pigeon, a long-tailed, bluish-grey bird, coincided with the arrival in North America of European colonists. Tasty and easy to catch, tens of millions were shot to feed a rapidly growing population. They were so abundant they were even fed to pigs. They also became a focus for sport, and countless thousands were blasted from the sky.

Even when pigeon numbers fell so drastically that commercial exploitation ground to a halt, the slaughter continued. The Passenger Pigeon was unlucky enough to live in a time of scant environmental awareness and no one thought of protecting it or its habitat.

Americans were so shocked at the speed of the Passenger Pigeon’s demise that some believed the suddenly absent birds had simply migrated south.

The Passenger Pigeon’s extinction cannot be dismissed as an isolated episode from history. Now, another formerly widespread pigeon species is rapidly slipping into oblivion.

Some believe the Turtle Dove will become extinct in the UK in just 15 years.

These exotically marked summer migrants are the UK’s fastest declining species. Their population is halving every six years and numbers stand at just 5% of what they were in 1970. This summer is believed to have been the worst for the species on record in the UK.

Dr Mark Avery, former director of conservation at the RSPB and author of A Message From Martha, says: “We drove the most numerous bird in the world to extinction in a few brief decades. The European countryside is losing its farmland birds at a terrifying rate. Will the Turtle Dove be the next Passenger Pigeon? If so, we can’t say, this time, that we didn’t see it coming – we know enough, but do we care enough?”

Operation Turtle Dove, a partnership between the RSPB, Conservation Grade, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust and Natural England, launched in May 2012. The Turtle Dove’s migration route to Africa is being closely monitored, research into their English breeding grounds is being gathered and farmers are being advised how they provide food for the bird on their land.

We can can try to stop history repeating itself, but for the Turtle Dove – our previous record is not encouraging.