Roseate Spoonbill (Ajaia ajaja; originally Platalea Ajaja)

In Audubon’s day spoonbills were numerous in the Gulf states from Florida to Texas, and although their rosy wings were sold commercially for fans in St. Augustine, they did not interest plumage hunters as much as the egrets whose filmy nuptial sprays were in demand. But they were big pink birds that lived with the egrets and so were tempting targets. In the years that followed, particularly after the Civil War, they rapidly disappeared, and before the end of the century not one still bred in Texas and perhaps not two dozen in Florida. If it were not for the fact that some spoonbills still survived south of the border, the species surely would have followed the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet into the void of extinction.