And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise

I was reluctant to read this book, since I already knew the ending, and it's sad--a non-native snake somehow hitched a ride to the island of Guam where, over a period of three decades, it managed to spread over the island and obliterate all the resident bird-life. Three species of birds went extinct and two more, the Guam rail and the Micronesian kingfisher, are extinct in the wild. These are the facts, but there is much more to the book than that. "And No Birds Sing" is a fascinating account of how the scientists involved, especially a young woman, Julie Savidge, who was working on her dissertation, explored the problem and found the evidence that the invasive brown tree snake was, indeed, the culprit. Up until that point, no one show more thought a single invader would be capable of such devastation and other explanations, such as disease or pesticides, were favored. There are also chapters on how captive breeding programs are established in zoos and detailing the attempts to release the Guam rails on a neighboring island. The brown tree snake is a fascinating villain, continuously proving itself capable of things that snakes "shouldn't" be able to do. Finally, as the author makes clear, the importance of this story goes far beyond the fate of one Pacific island. As more and more habitat is fragmented and surrounded by endless cities and suburbs, species are stranded and the few pockets of wilderness left begin to act as islands in a sea of people. Like Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," this is a book that easily moves from "current events" to "classic." show less