Birding in an Age of Extinctions
Author : Martin Painter
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 21,32 MB
Release : 2021-06-25
Category :
ISBN : 9781849954877
Author : Martin Painter
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 21,32 MB
Release : 2021-06-25
Category :
ISBN : 9781849954877
Author : Julian P. Hume
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 609 pages
File Size : 50,5 MB
Release : 2017-08-24
Category : Nature
ISBN : 1472937465
A comprehensive review of the hundreds of bird species that have become extinct over the last 1,000 years of habitat degradation, over-hunting and rat introduction. Extinct Birds has become the standard text on this subject, covering both familiar icons of extinction as well as more obscure birds, some known from just one specimen or from travellers' tales. This second edition is expanded to include dozens of new species, as more are constantly added to the list, either through extinction or through new subfossil discoveries. The book is the result of decades of research into literature and museum drawers, as well as caves and subfossil deposits, which often reveal birds long-gone that disappeared without ever being recorded by scientists while they lived. From Great Auks, Carolina Parakeets and Dodos to the amazing yet almost completely vanished bird radiations of Hawaii and New Zealand via rafts of extinction in the Pacific and elsewhere, this book is both a sumptuous reference and astounding testament to humanity's devastating impact on wildlife.
Author : Tim Fridtjof Flannery
Publisher : Atlantic Monthly Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 29,17 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Extinct animals
ISBN : 9780871137975
A short description of the extinct animal along with a color drawing.
Author : Martin Painter
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 15,69 MB
Release : 2021
Category : Bird watchers
ISBN : 9781849955126
Author : Peter P. Marra
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 26,77 MB
Release : 2016-09-20
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691167419
Why our cats are a danger to species diversity and human health In 1894, a lighthouse keeper named David Lyall arrived on Stephens Island off New Zealand with a cat named Tibbles. In just over a year, the Stephens Island Wren, a rare bird endemic to the island, was rendered extinct. Mounting scientific evidence confirms what many conservationists have suspected for some time—that in the United States alone, free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions. Equally alarming are the little-known but potentially devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates. Cat Wars tells the story of the threats free-ranging cats pose to biodiversity and public health throughout the world, and sheds new light on the controversies surrounding the management of the explosion of these cat populations. This compelling book traces the historical and cultural ties between humans and cats from early domestication to the current boom in pet ownership, along the way accessibly explaining the science of extinction, population modeling, and feline diseases. It charts the developments that have led to our present impasse—from Stan Temple's breakthrough studies on cat predation in Wisconsin to cat-eradication programs underway in Australia today. It describes how a small but vocal minority of cat advocates has campaigned successfully for no action in much the same way that special interest groups have stymied attempts to curtail smoking and climate change. Cat Wars paints a revealing picture of a complex global problem—and proposes solutions that foresee a time when wildlife and humans are no longer vulnerable to the impacts of free-ranging cats.
Author : Erik Hirschfeld
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 43,78 MB
Release : 2013-03-17
Category : Nature
ISBN : 1400844908
An illustrated survey of the world's most endangered birds This illustrated book vividly depicts the most endangered birds in the world and provides the latest information on the threats each species faces and the measures being taken to save them. Today, 571 bird species are classified as critically endangered or endangered, and a further four now exist only in captivity. This landmark book features stunning photographs of 500 of these species—the results of a prestigious international photographic competition organized specifically for this book. It also showcases paintings by acclaimed wildlife artist Tomasz Cofta of the 75 species for which no photos are known to exist. The World's Rarest Birds has introductory chapters that explain the threats to birds, the ways threat categories are applied, and the distinction between threat and rarity. The book is divided into seven regional sections—Europe and the Middle East; Africa and Madagascar; Asia; Australasia; Oceanic Islands; North America, Central America, and the Caribbean; and South America. Each section includes an illustrated directory to the bird species under threat there, and gives a concise description of distribution, status, population, key threats, and conservation needs. This one-of-a-kind book also provides coverage of 62 data-deficient species.
Author : B.J. Hollars
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 44,85 MB
Release : 2017-02-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0803296428
After stumbling upon a book of photographs depicting extinct animals, B.J. Hollars became fascinated by the creatures that are no longer with us; specifically, extinct North American birds. How, he wondered, could we preserve so beautifully on film what we’ve failed to preserve in life? And so begins his yearlong journey to find out, one that leads him from bogs to art museums, from archives to Christmas Counts, until he at last comes as close to extinct birds as he ever will during a behind-the-scenes visit at the Chicago Field Museum. Heartbroken by the birds we’ve lost, Hollars takes refuge in those that remain. Armed with binoculars, a field guide, and knowledgeable friends, he begins his transition from budding birder to environmentally conscious citizen, a first step on a longer journey toward understanding the true tragedy of a bird’s song silenced forever. Told with charm and wit, Flock Together is a remarkable memoir that shows how “knowing” the natural world—even just a small part—illuminates what it means to be a global citizen and how only by embracing our ecological responsibilities do we ever become fully human. A moving elegy to birds we’ve lost, Hollars’s exploration of what we can learn from extinct species will resonate in the minds of readers long beyond the final page. Purchase the audio edition. Watch a book trailer for Hollars’s newest book, Midwestern Strange.
Author : Michelle Nijhuis
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 33,14 MB
Release : 2021-03-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 1324001690
Winner of the Sierra Club's 2021 Rachel Carson Award One of Chicago Tribune's Ten Best Books of 2021 Named a Top Ten Best Science Book of 2021 by Booklist and Smithsonian Magazine "At once thoughtful and thought-provoking,” Beloved Beasts tells the story of the modern conservation movement through the lives and ideas of the people who built it, making “a crucial addition to the literature of our troubled time" (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction). In the late nineteenth century, humans came at long last to a devastating realization: their rapidly industrializing and globalizing societies were driving scores of animal species to extinction. In Beloved Beasts, acclaimed science journalist Michelle Nijhuis traces the history of the movement to protect and conserve other forms of life. From early battles to save charismatic species such as the American bison and bald eagle to today’s global effort to defend life on a larger scale, Nijhuis’s “spirited and engaging” account documents “the changes of heart that changed history” (Dan Cryer, Boston Globe). With “urgency, passion, and wit” (Michael Berry, Christian Science Monitor), she describes the vital role of scientists and activists such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, reveals the origins of vital organizations like the Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund, explores current efforts to protect species such as the whooping crane and the black rhinoceros, and confronts the darker side of modern conservation, long shadowed by racism and colonialism. As the destruction of other species continues and the effects of climate change wreak havoc on our world, Beloved Beasts charts the ways conservation is becoming a movement for the protection of all species including our own.
Author : Derek Lovitch
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 20,6 MB
Release : 2012-03-25
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0691144486
Explains the best practices for bird identification including using the weather, geography, and radar.
Author : Bruce Kendrick
Publisher :
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 19,89 MB
Release : 2021-11-26
Category :
ISBN : 9781849954952
As a ten-year-old, the author contracted TB and was sent to an isolated sanatorium, deep in the Cheshire countryside. There he was bedridden for six months. On fine days, nurses would push the young patients, in their beds, out onto a large veranda and it was there that his love of birdwatching developed. On leaving hospital, he shared his passion with three schoolmates and over the next five years this small band of birders explored wildlife locations on and nearby the Wirral. Their travels and love of nature was epitomised when, aged 16, they spent part of their summer on Bardsey, a remote island off North Wales as part of a small, professional team of naturalists. As a young birdwatcher, the author is fascinated when he observed nature first-hand and began to grasp the basics of the science of evolution. This is a 'rites of passage' story of one lad's journey through those early formative teenage years during 1957 to 1962 when birdwatching sat easily in his life alongside football, girls, radical politics and rock bands. Each chapter traces the boy's expanding world of nature and then, in later life, he reflects on those times. A passion for nature has stayed with him throughout his life and as an adult, he explores the way views are formed and become a base reference framework to work out his personal ethics and morality. On revisiting all his old haunts each visit triggers further questions, reflections and musings. How does nature manage, over all those years, to continue to inspire and stimulate him? What does it mean to be part of nature? How does nature manage to heal? An Eye for Birds is a series of reflections of an individual, trained in the sciences, revisiting his teenage wildlife haunts and looking back to those times with mature perspective and sentiment that add their own colours to the story.