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Description
Located just outside the Biotopia Visitor Center among several other small exhibit complexes that visitors can view before booking a safari tour is a grand walk-through aviary three stories high with an area of almost four acres. The "Pigeon Pen", is heavily vegetated, with several trees including a massive fig tree and a small stream running through it and is home to an immense collection of birds, mostly from the pigeon family. Featured are several once extinct members of the fauna of Mauritius, and island in the Indian Ocean. A dozen of the famous Dodo live here, once thought of as slow, stupid, clumsy clowns of creatures are now known to be very dynamic, interesting and at times feisty beasts. They wander about the floor of their own forest along with six Rodrigues Solitaires; close relatives, along with a few Broad-billed parrots, Newton's parakeets, and Nicobar pigeons; the closest extant relatives of the Dodo and Solitaire. Also calling the Pigeon Pen home are a couple of Socorro doves, a handful of Victoria crowned pigeons, five giant flying foxes, and most famously(along with the Dodos), a flock of 150 passenger pigeons; a bird that was once the most numerous on Earth, reduced to nothing by 1914, when the last known bird; Martha, passed on in Ohio's Cincinnati zoo. Now this poster-child for extinction thrives once more in zoos all over the world, including the Cincinnati zoo, with the world's largest captive flock living at Biotopia. But what makes this bird especially unique, even more than all the giant dinosaurs and megafaunal mammals Biotopia keeps, is that the Passenger pigeon is the only species brought back from extinction to not only live in captivity, but also to have been reintroduced into it's former habitat. As the species was distributed and breed in zoological parks across the globe after it's success in Biotopia, a success shared with only a handful of other once-extinct species, the idea of releasing a population of birds into the wild came up and soon gained favor with the chiefs of the company. It was a risky, if not noble move that the company took, as the vast majority of the once-extinct animals kept int he park are in little to no way suited for a wild existence in the modern world. It is totally impossible to reintroduce dinosaurs into the wild, as the ecosystems they once dominated no longer exist, and little suitable habitat that can support healthy populations of recently extinct creatures like mammoths and thylacines exists today. But the passenger pigeon is the exception, for their are still plentiful areas throughout North America, the birds former dominion, that can and do serve as good habitat. Ten years ago a flock of 100 were released into the wilds of New England, and as of 2045 the wild population of passenger pigeons as increased to several thousand spreading throughout the Eastern portion of the continent. This success story shows that Biotopia is more than a dinosaur-zoo, but a beating heart of life that pumps hope and promise for the health and prosperity of endangered species all over the planet. Because of the numerous breeding and conservation programs undertaken by the Biotopia company, numerous species that otherwise would have went the way of the dinosaurs have been spared; saved from the brink or brought back after a brief period of extinction, as was the case of the kakapo, two species of rhinoceros and the Pinta island tortoise. Biotopia stands for much more than spectacle and entertainment, but for celebration, salvation, and hope for all living things, including us.

Description
Located just outside the Biotopia Visitor Center among several other small exhibit complexes that visitors can view before booking a safari tour is a grand walk-through aviary three stories high with an area of almost four acres. The "Pigeon Pen", is heavily vegetated, with several trees including a massive fig tree and a small stream running through it and is home to an immense collection of birds, mostly from the pigeon family. Featured are several once extinct members of the fauna of Mauritius, and island in the Indian Ocean. A dozen of the famous Dodo live here, once thought of as slow, stupid, clumsy clowns of creatures are now known to be very dynamic, interesting and at times feisty beasts. They wander about the floor of their own forest along with six Rodrigues Solitaires; close relatives, along with a few Broad-billed parrots, Newton's parakeets, and Nicobar pigeons; the closest extant relatives of the Dodo and Solitaire. Also calling the Pigeon Pen home are a couple of Socorro doves, a handful of Victoria crowned pigeons, five giant flying foxes, and most famously(along with the Dodos), a flock of 150 passenger pigeons; a bird that was once the most numerous on Earth, reduced to nothing by 1914, when the last known bird; Martha, passed on in Ohio's Cincinnati zoo. Now this poster-child for extinction thrives once more in zoos all over the world, including the Cincinnati zoo, with the world's largest captive flock living at Biotopia. But what makes this bird especially unique, even more than all the giant dinosaurs and megafaunal mammals Biotopia keeps, is that the Passenger pigeon is the only species brought back from extinction to not only live in captivity, but also to have been reintroduced into it's former habitat. As the species was distributed and breed in zoological parks across the globe after it's success in Biotopia, a success shared with only a handful of other once-extinct species, the idea of releasing a population of birds into the wild came up and soon gained favor with the chiefs of the company. It was a risky, if not noble move that the company took, as the vast majority of the once-extinct animals kept int he park are in little to no way suited for a wild existence in the modern world. It is totally impossible to reintroduce dinosaurs into the wild, as the ecosystems they once dominated no longer exist, and little suitable habitat that can support healthy populations of recently extinct creatures like mammoths and thylacines exists today. But the passenger pigeon is the exception, for their are still plentiful areas throughout North America, the birds former dominion, that can and do serve as good habitat. Ten years ago a flock of 100 were released into the wilds of New England, and as of 2045 the wild population of passenger pigeons as increased to several thousand spreading throughout the Eastern portion of the continent. This success story shows that Biotopia is more than a dinosaur-zoo, but a beating heart of life that pumps hope and promise for the health and prosperity of endangered species all over the planet. Because of the numerous breeding and conservation programs undertaken by the Biotopia company, numerous species that otherwise would have went the way of the dinosaurs have been spared; saved from the brink or brought back after a brief period of extinction, as was the case of the kakapo, two species of rhinoceros and the Pinta island tortoise. Biotopia stands for much more than spectacle and entertainment, but for celebration, salvation, and hope for all living things, including us.