St. Martin's Press
Hardcover. 416 pages.
From the time the country was founded, early Americans assumed that the land’s natural resources were infinite, including its birds, which were zealously hunted for food, game, and fashion. With the rapid extinction of the passenger pigeon―a bird once so numerous that its flocks darkened the sky in flight―many realized actions needed to be taken if other birds were to be saved. What followed was both a spiritual awakening and a great crusade to save birds and their habitat. The campaign took place on many battlefields: society teas in Boston, hunt clubs on the East Coast, the mangroves in the Everglades, and in the editorial pages of newspapers and periodicals. From many corners of the country the bird protection movement was born and brought together a remarkable coalition of people and organizations to save America’s birds.
The Feather Wars is an entertaining and expansive work of American history, an incredible story about how disparate characters―progressive politicians, free-thinking society belles, nature writers and artists, bird-loving U.S. presidents, gunmakers, business titans, and brave game wardens―came together to save hundreds of species of birds. Heroes, martyrs, villains, and conflicted do-gooders―the early bird conservation movement had them all. Together they transformed how Americans thought and cared about birds, forever altering the American landscape."
The Feather Wars is incredibly well-researched and I think does an amazing job of telling readers about a long and complicated history of birds in America in a way that felt accessible and compelling. This was a bit of a random read for me and I'm so glad I decided to take a chance and pick it up. I learned so much and am now even more curious about all the populations of birds in my area.
Growing up, I was never very much into birds. There were cool, but you know, I never really thought about them much--they were just there, and I had no idea how tumultuous their history in the United States was. However, as an adult, I've found myself more and more interested in birds and I've really grown more curious about all the birds that live in my area and how they got there. (I also regularly feed some crows in my neighborhood so they now follow me and my dog on walks and it's both really cool and a little bit weird sometimes, but I like it.)
The Feather Wars really opened my eyes to so much about the history of birds and their interactions with the human population as the United States developed. In doing so, it thoroughly explains the immense impact hunting--whether for sport, fashion, scientific study, collection, or a variety of others reasons--has had on the populations of birds and just how much humans have impacted them. And a majority of those impacts have been pretty negative, or at least they started out that way, as now there is more awareness and work being done to preserve their populations in the wild. Personally, I am not a huge fan of hunting in general, and I know that some hunting is done in ways meant to help population and all that, but I'm personally not planning to go hunting and there is plenty of hunting done just for sport, which is what is really highlighted in this book as having a huge impact on birds. Even those who hunted simply to collect the birds to study caused detrimental harm, and I appreciated how clearly this book was able to document so many of these examples while then pivoting into the different conservation efforts undertaken throughout the years.
The Feather Wars also discusses many modern day issues, most notably common domestic cats, which have decimated and continue to cause great harm to bird populations. Cats are not natural to these environment and people don't tend to realize just how many birds their cats kill, or how this affects their population.
It was actually quite devastating to read about how birds have been treated over time, and it's made me really consider more just how important their populations are. McCommons really takes the time to dive into many specific examples of bird populations that have been harmed, as well as people throughout history who have done both positive and negative things in relation to conservation efforts, and I found these extremely compelling to learn about. There was so much that I never knew about, and it was also really interesting to learn about the founding of things I have heard of but don't know many details about, such as the Audubon society.
Overall, I highly recommend this one for anyone interested in birds or honestly anyone who wants to learn about a fascinating topic that is still very relevant.
No comments:
Post a Comment