Booming Ben

Booming Ben (c. 1924 – March 11, 1932) was the last confirmed heath hen, a subspecies of the greater prairie chicken.^[1] He was last spotted on Martha's Vineyard in the US state of Massachusetts on March 11, 1932.^[2] His death marked the extinction of the heath hen.^[3]

Heath hens experienced significant population decline due to hunting practices during the colonial period,^[4][5] with all remaining birds on Martha's Vineyard by 1870, despite their prior range across the East Coast of the United States.^[3] Ornithologists began tracking the population in 1908.^[5]

With conservation efforts, the population grew from 100 to around 2,000 by 1916. However, a 1916 fire dropped the population down to 150,^[6] with many of the surviving birds being male.^[3][5] The following years included a particularly harsh winter, followed by spread of disease among the Heath hen population. Additionally, the small population led to inbreeding, resulting in genetic issues that left many birds infertile.^[4]

In 1925, the Federation of the Bird Clubs of New England proffered $2,000 annually toward conservation efforts. However, by the beginning of 1927, only 11 males and 2 females remained. By the fall of 1928, only two males remained, with only Booming Ben surviving as of December of that year.^[5]

Despite his name, Booming Ben was silent in the final years of his life.^[5] Gross attempted to mate Booming Ben with a Wisconsin prairie chicken to no avail.^[7] Many expected him to die before 1930.^[5] Before Ben's death, American ornithologist Alfred Otto Gross of Bowdoin College and American conservationist Thornton W. Burgess attached an identification tag to his leg.^[3][8] Booming Ben was last seen on March 11, 1932.^[2] After failing to appear for multiple seasons, Gross offered a $100 reward for the recovery of Ben's body.^[9][10]

Footage of Booming Ben recorded by Alfred Otto Gross in the early 1930s was digitized in 2017; it is available from the Bowdoin College special collections.^[11]

Booming Ben has been memorialized in the 2024 children's book The Last Heath Hen: An Extinction Story, written by Christie Palmer Lowrance and illustrated by Michael Berndt.^[1][12] Additionally, a sculpture of Booming Ben has been erected where he was last seen off a bike path in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest. It is one of five statues as a part of Todd McGrain's Lost Bird Project.^[13]

• List of individual birds
• Endling
• George (snail), the last known Achatinella apexfulva
• Incas (parakeet), last known Carolina parakeet
• Lonesome George, the last known male Pinta Island tortoise
• Martha (passenger pigeon), the last known passenger pigeon
• Toughie (frog), the last known Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog