Wild Turkey Egg -- Newly hatched.

The egg of a wild American Turkey, which I presume was hatched and not dug up and eaten by a raccoon, from the red oak forest across the street, Augusta, Maine, April 30, 2010. The small, circular pecking hole in the left hand shell fragment suggests the baby turkey did hatch successfully. Let's hope so.

The wild Turkey was hunted to total extinction in New England by 1900. These animals were only restored by a miracle: live trapping young turkeys from the Adirondacks in the 1980s and releasing them into the New England states.

This cannot work with Passenger Pigeons, since we killed every one of them. It cannot happen with Great Auks, since we killed every one of them. It cannot happen with Ivory Billed Woodpeckers, since we killed every one of them. It cannot happen with Sea Minks, since we killed every one of them.

And it cannot happen with the American Chestnut, which the wild Turkey used as its principal food, because a fungus on a boat from Europe wiped them all out in the 1930s and no cure has ever since been found.

Oops.

Seems like us Americans are always saying Oops.