000 02214nam a2200277 i 4500
001 067534
005 20231009193448.0
008 140401s2014 nyu b 001 0 eng
010 _a2013016927
020 _a9781620405345
042 _apcc
050 0 0 _aQL696.C6
_bG74 2014
082 0 0 _a598.168 GRE
100 1 _aGreenberg, Joel
245 1 2 _aA feathered river across the sky
_b: the passenger pigeon's flight to extinction
_c/ Joel Greenberg.
246 3 0 _aPassenger pigeon's flight to extinction
250 _aFirst U.S. edition.
260 _aNew York, NY
_b: Bloomsbury
_c, c2014.
300 _a289 p.
_c; 24 cm.
504 _aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 _aLife 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.
520 _aAs 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.
650 0 _aPassenger pigeons
650 4 _aExtinct animals
942 _cMO
999 _c272172
_d272172