Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds

This work compiles the stories of the extinction of six North American bird species. The demises seems to cluster between the last half of the Nineteenth Century and the fist half of the Twentieth. There is an uncomfortable sameness to the final years: too little too late organized action and almost frenzied destruction triggered by the nearness of extinction. Much of the writing is poetic and evocative as this is obviously a heartfelt subject to the author. Some of the stories are really cruel tragedies: one of the last Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers imprisoned and dying in a hotel room to serve as a model and Martha, perhaps the last Passenger Pigeon, shuffling alone and scruffy in a Cleveland zoo. Other subjects are the colorful Carolina show more Parakeets, there social clustering good defense against hawks but poor for shotguns. Watching the last of the Heath Hens waste away on Martha's Vineyard could be a stand-in for the shape of all the species' demises, including the Labrador Duck and preyed upon Great Auk. show less

Cokinos spent ten years researching the life and subsequent extinction of six birds: Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Labrador Duck, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Heath Hen, and the Great Auk.
I find it terribly sad that no one knows the exact date of the demise of the Carolina Parakeet, but then again that's probably true of many extinct species. Right? How do we really know when we have seen the very last whatever? Here are details from Hope is the Thing with Feathers that will stick with me for a very long time: the Heath Hen has been compared to the Greater Prairie Chicken for their myriad of similarities. Their mating sounds are practical identical. Is that why no one took the extinction of the Heath Hen seriously? Were they so show more abundant they fell victim to overhunting; were they that easy to massacre? Is that what happened to the Passenger Pigeon? The cruelty inflicted on these birds was difficult to read. Cokinos gets into the question of cloning. Can you clone a species which has gone completely extinct? Can we have a Jurassic Park moment on a less dangerous scale?
Besides hunting, another factor wreaking havoc on bird populations was deforestation. Singer Sewing Machine purchased the nesting grounds of Lord God birds. Then they sold the rights to logging companies who cleared the land, destroying everything in its path. This happened over and over again. show less

A very informative and easy read about several extinct American birds. The section on the Carolina Parakeet was especially interesting, since the local museum I am with has a mounted specimen

A well-written and affecting look at the extinctions of several American bird species.

... in regards to this book, charity is hard to find.

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Extinct birds > North America