[panel 1: a large dodo approaches a clean, well dressed vagrant youth sat beside a well fashioned wood and stone building. The youth warily guards a bag holding their belongings and the stick they use to travel with it. The dodo asks “Pardon me, do you have the time?” and the youth replies “yes, it’s -“]

[panel 2: the dodo exclaims “You have the time!”]

[panel 3: a quartet of dodos appear and excitedly chatter over one another: “He has the time.” “The time! he has it!” “At long last! Our desperate search is at an end! The time has been found!”]

[panel 4: they lean in amongst one another and whisper “PSSHHWSSSSPTT SSHSSHHPSSTT”]

[panel 5: the group approaches the youth and asks “Will you… give us the time?” And the youth replies “It’s nine fifteen.” The dodos exclaim “AAAAAHHH! NOW WE HAVE THE TIME!”]

Wondermark by David Malki

  • Jose A Lerma@lemmy.world
    8·
    9 months ago

    Nah, they’d still be extinct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Hunting

    After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York, is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized

    Even if adjusted for inflation, 31 cents a dozen doesn’t sound like a lot, but then market saturation happened and your prediction came to pass:

    The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.

    Those who don’t learn from the past are something something