Present theory on the extinction of passenger pigeons plays down the role of hunters. The re-production rate of passenger pigeons exceeded the amount of passenger pigeons being killed, much like other small game birds.
Furthermore Market hunters were known to quit hunting once the numbers of animals they are hunting, falls below a number they can make money on. People did NOT want to pay more for passenger pigeons then chicken, thus the cut off for market hunters of passenger pigeons was high.
The key seems to be where the passenger pigeons wanted to nest. They wanted tall virgin timber next to open fields. As Americans open up its farm lands in the 1800s, you had many places with open fields next to virgin timber. This was the ideal situation for Passenger Pigeons and they boomed.
The problem was as the US neared 1900, most of the virgin timber east of the Great Plains were cut down. You had a lot of open fields, but no tall virgin timber. You had places passenger pigeons could feed (open fields) but no place for them to nest (Tall timber).
Thus it was the ax and the saw that killed off the passenger Pigeons not the gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon
http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/passpigeon.htm
http://environmentalaska.us/passenger-pigeons-and-their-extinction.html
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1114-tina_butler_pigeon.html
Now, hunting was a factor, for the Passenger Pigeon was a very communal bird and only breed in large colonies in virgin timber:
http://www.wildbirds.org/apidesay.htm
Some were seen as late as the 1930s, but these were unconfirmed reports. My father remembers being taken by his father to their pigeon loft and seeing a larger then the other pigeons, pigeon. He believes it was a passenger pigeon looking for food and may be a place to nest and his father wanted him to see one. This was when my father was quite young, in the 1920s.
There have been reports of larger then pigeon size pigeons since the 1930s, increasingly in the last 30-40 years as the second growth forest in the east slowly returns to a mature forest. The reports may be of passenger pigeons. The problem with most of these reports is that the new mature forests tend to be deep inside younger forests not open fields. This is also a plus for such reports, it would explain why no one has seen one since the 1930s, they are together in deep forests or swamps. In simple terms, if a large enough group of passenger pigeons survived (and that is a big if) the increase in the number of reports over the last 30-40 years would show an expansion of their range due to the general maturing of the forests of the Eastern US. Remember, while we have reports of massive flocks of passenger pigeons, when Indian settlements are excavated they find very few bones of passenger pigeons. This indicate they may have been very small in numbers until the early colonists started to cut down trees and plant crops. Native American farming was very primitive to comparison to European farming methods (once farmers came to the new world, as oppose to upper middle class people who wanted to make a quick buck fast, which was the case in Virginia, or upper middle class people who wanted to set up a place free of influence of Roman Catholicism, who forgot to bring any farmers with them, as was the case with Plymouth).
On the other hand, most experts doubt these reports are of passenger pigeons. Domestic Homing Pigeons are still used in races and that is what they may have saw (Domestic Homing pigeons, due to being able to be feed by humans, tend to be larger then feral or wild pigeons). Homing pigeons have been known to fly 700 miles in a single day, thus the better explanation for these reports.
One last comment, if the reports we have of HOW passenger pigeons lived, a single pair will NOT be enough. You will need a VERY LARGE GROUP OF BIRDS to even start a colony (and I mean in the thousands). The reports was these birds moved together as a flock, settled in an area, clean out the area of food, and then moved to another location and may not return for years to the same location. They nest and feed their chicks as a group (something their share with the common pigeon) and live as a one large flock. Thus why my father was able to see one, they so wanted to be with other pigeons, the pigeons my grand father kept was attractive enough to one of them for one to stay for a while, till humans appeared and that lone passenger pigeon flew off.
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