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A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction / Joel Greenberg.

By:

Greenberg, Joel

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York, NY : Bloomsbury , c2014.Edition: First U.S. editionDescription: 289 p. ; 24 cmISBN:

9781620405345

Other title:

Passenger pigeon's flight to extinction

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

598.168 GRE

LOC classification:

QL696.C6 G74 2014

Contents:

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.

Summary: 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.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Libro - Monografía	Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. Sala Ingles	598.168 GRE (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		067534

Browsing Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. shelves, Shelving location: Sala Ingles Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)

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Previous	598.072 Welcome to subirdia : sharing our neighborhoods with wrens, robins, woodpeckers, and other wildlife	598.072 Bird homes and habitats	598.1568 WEI A world on the wing : the global odyssey of migratory birds	598.168 GRE A feathered river across the sky : the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction	598.2 HOW A guide to the birds of Mexico and Northern Central America	598.2 PET Birds of Eastern and Central North America	598.2 WEL The life of birds	Next

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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.

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