The Silent Sky: The Incredible Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon
by Allan W. Eckert
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This nature novel, by following the hatching and lifetime experiences of the last know wild passenger pigeon, chronicles the life, natural history, and ultimate extinction of this species which was once the most abundant bird species in North America. The last wild bird was killed in 1900; the last captive bird died in 1914.Tags
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A narrative about the rapid decline and extinction of the passenger pigeon. It is fiction based on fact and told from the perspective of two individual birds. The concept is original, daring, and it holds your interest. Considering the pigeons declined in population from multiple billions to one individual within a single human lifetime, the story is necessarily sad; a steady drumbeat of death coming from the many dangers the species faced.
One of the most depressing books I've ever read, and an important one as we descend into a period of mass extinction.
A biography of a passenger pigeon, that tells the story of the extintion of the breed. Told from the point of view of the pigeon
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49+ Works 5,612 Members
Allan W. Eckert was born in Buffalo, New York on January 30, 1931. He served in the United States Air Force and attended the University of Dayton and Ohio State University. He was a historian, naturalist, novelist, poet, screenwriter and playwright. He wrote over 40 books during his lifetime including A Time of Terror: The Great Dayton Flood, Wild show more Season, The Silent Sky, The Frontiersmen, Wilderness Empire, The Conquerors, and A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh, which were all nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in literature. He received the Newbery Honor Book Award for Incident at Hawk's Hill. He also wrote almost all of the scripts for television's Wild Kingdom and adapted The Frontiersmen into the play Tecumseh! He died of prostate cancer on July 7, 2011 at the age of 80. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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