A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction
Author(s): Joel Greenberg
In the early nineteenth century 25 to 40 percent of North America's birds were passenger pigeons, traveling in flocks so massive as to block out the sun for hours or even days. The down beats of their wings would chill the air beneath and create a thundering roar that would drown out all other sound. Feeding flocks would appear as "a blue wave four or five feet high rolling toward you." John James Audubon, impressed by their speed and agility, said a lone passenger pigeon streaking through the forest "passes like a thought." How prophetic-for although a billion pigeons streamed over Toronto in May of 1860, little more than fifty years later passenger pigeons were extinct. The last of the species, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. As naturalist Joel Greenberg relates in gripping detail, the pigeons' propensity to nest, roost, and fly together in vast numbers made them vulnerable to unremitting market and recreational hunting. The spread of railroads and telegraph lines created national markets that allowed the birds to be pursued relentlessly.
Passenger pigeons inspired awe in the likes of Audubon, Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and others, but no serious effort was made to protect the species until it was way too late. Greenberg's beautifully written story of the passenger pigeon provides a cautionary tale of what happens when species and natural resources are not harvested sustainably.
Product Information
The epic story of why passenger pigeons became extinct and what that says about our current relationship with the natural world.
There are a hundred ways to kill a species, and each extinction is both a tragedy and a drama deserving of its own story. This thoroughly researched and well written account of the passenger pigeon is a definitive example of its genre. Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor, Emeritus, Harvard University A Feathered River Across the Sky is a parable of our time. The numbers and biomass of passenger pigeons exceeded the great Pacific salmon runs, and the awesome image of birds evokes wonder, humility, and outrage at human insensitivity and short sightedness. What a heartbreaking indictment of our species that we treated these animals so thoughtlessly. David Suzuki, author of THE SACRED BALANCE An epic of life and death on a scale of billions... The world has never seen anything like the abundance and crash of the passenger pigeon. This astonishing book glows with life, not just as history but as a vivid and urgent story for today and tomorrow. Joel Greenberg is one of our finest nature writers, and his masterful command of this extraordinary topic makes this a must-read book for the ages. Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird Highway Greenberg pulls together a wealth of material from myriad sources to describe the life and death of this species... [A] story that is both ennobling and fascinating. Publishers Weekly
Joel Greenberg is a research associate of the Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Field Museum. Author of three books, including A Natural History of the Chicago Region, Greenberg has taught natural history courses for the Morton Arboretum, Brookfield Zoo, and Chicago Botanic Garden. He helped spearhead Project Passenger Pigeon to focus attention on human-caused extinctions. Greenberg lives in Westmont, Illinois. Visit his blog at Birdzilla.com.
General Fields
- :
- : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- : 4.57
- : 01 March 2014
- : 235mm X 155mm
- : United States
- : 01 March 2014
- : books
Special Fields
- : Joel Greenberg
- : Hardback
- : 598.65
- : 304
- : 16 p color insert, and b&w
