Yet her long years in captivity at Cincinnati Zoo had seen her elevated to star attraction and feted like an American First Lady, a fitting tribute to a humble bird named in honour of George Washington’s beloved wife.
By the time Martha had reached her dotage in 1914, visitors across the US and beyond were making pilgrimages to see her alone on her perch.
The offer of a $1,000 reward to find a mate to keep going a species which had once numbered five billion but was wiped out by trapping and shooting went unclaimed.
Her death is regarded as the key moment in conservation history: living, and dying, proof of mankind’s ability to wipe out a fellow species and the realisation that extinction really is for ever.
Martha’s story is told in Lost Animals, published by Blooms- bury, one of a series of projects and books in the New Year marking the centenary of her death and highlighting the spectre of extinction.
Just as poignant is Going Going Gone, also by Bloomsbury, which looks at 100 species – some famed, many little known – moving towards the brink because of the pressures of the modern world.
To highlight the threats, 100 wildlife conservation groups were asked to choose a species that epitomises their work and the dangers faced. The answers will surprise many.
While the mighty African elephant, dashing Amur leopard and polar bear might be expected to appear in a list of endangered animals, the wildlife organisations also nominated a vast array of plants, invertebrates and even threatened habitats.
The Orangutan Foundation highlights the plight of the great ape of the Sumatran and Bornean rainforests. Logging, mining and clearance for palm oil seriously threaten the flame-coated ape. Today, fewer than 60,000 survive.
Black rhinoceros numbers have crashed by 97 per cent since the Sixties, mainly due to poaching for the Far East where its horn is believed to cure cancer and hangovers.
Save the Rhino International is running programmes across Africa to help save the last 5,055 animals.
Roughly 20 per cent of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are threatened with extinction
Both Sumatran and Siberian tigers feature on the list. The Zoological Society of London warns that only 300 of the big cats survive in Sumatra where the killing of its prey species and habitat fragmentation are taking their toll.
Hunting tigers for the illegal trade in their body parts is also a significant threat. Tiger bone is highly prized in Chinese medicine. Poaching is also driving the Siberian tiger to the brink. Its population hovers between 350 and 400 but conservation organisation Rare has been supporting an initiative to stop the Chinese eating the wild game the tiger depends on to survive.
Closer to home, the ash tree and basking shark also feature in the book.
The Tree Council chose the ash, Britain’s third most common woodland species, which is being killed off by fungal disease on a scale not seen since Dutch elm struck a generation ago.
Basking sharks, chosen by the Wildlife Trusts, are classified as vulnerable because numbers are declining from boat strikes and entanglement in fishing nets.
Other British species on the list include the little-known Bechstein’s bat, the corncockle flower and marsh fritillary butterfly. Habitat loss is a main cause of their continuing decline. Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation programmes at the Zoological Society of London, has written for Going Going Gone.
He says: “Roughly 20 per cent of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are threatened with extinction and an initial assessment of plants and invertebrates indicates that 20 per cent of all life forms are under threat.
“We also know that almost all these declines have been driven by human activity such as habitat loss, species introductions, exploitation or climate change, most of which are reversible. Yet with one-fifth of the world’s species threatened with extinction, where do we start?”