A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction
Greenberg, Joel
A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction Passenger pigeon's flight to extinction / Joel Greenberg. - First U.S. edition. - New York, NY : Bloomsbury , c2014. - 289 p. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Life of the wanderer -- My blood shall be your blood : indians and passenger pigeons -- A legacy of awe -- Pigeons as provisions to pigeons as products -- Means of destruction -- Profiles in killing -- The tempest was spent : the last great nestings -- Flights to the finish -- Martha and her kin : the captive flocks -- Extinction and beyond -- A passenger pigeon miscellany.
As the centenary of the passenger pigeon's extinction nears, Greenberg (A Natural History of the Chicago Region) offers this cautionary tale of the once most populous bird on earth. Ectopistes migratorius gathered in numbers hard to imagine-John James Audubon estimated a flock's size over Kentucky in 1813 at a billion or more-so many that the "sky was black with birds for three days." But as awesome as was their abundance, their slaughter, sadly, may be more poignant. When the plunder changed from hunters looking to put an easy meal on the table to professional "pigeoners" seeking to take advantage of national markets for pigeon meat, fat, and feathers, the gradual decline that began at the start of the 19th century became catastrophic by the 1870s. Greenberg's sifting of the historical record shows how a variety of factors--e.g., the use of the telegraph to report locations of immense nesting colonies to be pillaged, the completion of the eastern railroad network, complete habitat destruction--sealed the bird's fate.
9781620405345
2013016927
Passenger pigeons
Extinct animals
QL696.C6 / G74 2014
598.168 GRE
A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction Passenger pigeon's flight to extinction / Joel Greenberg. - First U.S. edition. - New York, NY : Bloomsbury , c2014. - 289 p. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Life of the wanderer -- My blood shall be your blood : indians and passenger pigeons -- A legacy of awe -- Pigeons as provisions to pigeons as products -- Means of destruction -- Profiles in killing -- The tempest was spent : the last great nestings -- Flights to the finish -- Martha and her kin : the captive flocks -- Extinction and beyond -- A passenger pigeon miscellany.
As the centenary of the passenger pigeon's extinction nears, Greenberg (A Natural History of the Chicago Region) offers this cautionary tale of the once most populous bird on earth. Ectopistes migratorius gathered in numbers hard to imagine-John James Audubon estimated a flock's size over Kentucky in 1813 at a billion or more-so many that the "sky was black with birds for three days." But as awesome as was their abundance, their slaughter, sadly, may be more poignant. When the plunder changed from hunters looking to put an easy meal on the table to professional "pigeoners" seeking to take advantage of national markets for pigeon meat, fat, and feathers, the gradual decline that began at the start of the 19th century became catastrophic by the 1870s. Greenberg's sifting of the historical record shows how a variety of factors--e.g., the use of the telegraph to report locations of immense nesting colonies to be pillaged, the completion of the eastern railroad network, complete habitat destruction--sealed the bird's fate.
9781620405345
2013016927
Passenger pigeons
Extinct animals
QL696.C6 / G74 2014
598.168 GRE
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