The epic story of why passenger pigeons became extinct and what that says about our current relationship with the natural world.
The epic story of why passenger pigeons became extinct and what that says about our current relationship with the natural world.
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.
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 The first major work in sixty years about the most famous extinct species since the dodo...equal parts natural history, elegy, and environmental outcry...A painstaking researcher, Greenberg writes with a naturalist's curiosity about the birds...Answering even basic questions about the passenger pigeon requires a sort of forensic ornithology, which gives FEATHERED RIVER ACROSS THE SKY an unexpected poignancy at the very points where it is most nature-nerdy. New Yorker Joel Greenberg has done prodigious research into the literature of the passenger pigeon and lays much of it out in this book. For that effort, all who care about the living world owe him a debt of gratitude. Wall Street Journal A brilliant, important, haunting and poignant book, A Feathered River Across the Sky... will forever change the way in which you think of pigeons (all birds, really) and about the natural world. The book describes, in vivid detail, forceful narrative and handsome illustrations, the history of this species and the factors that contributed to its extinction. Chicago Tribune
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