Birds are disappearing from our world at an accelerating rate. A tenth of the surviving species are endangered and the numbers of almost all are in decline. The reasons for this are well documented, but what is more difficult to understand is the lack of outrage and widespread concern among humankind. This book makes a survey of human attitudes toward avian life from the reverence and devotion of early cultures to the rapacious slaughter of passenger pigeons and Eskimo curlew to our modern-day indifference.
“Many humans seem content to see virtual birds and other animals and do not miss the real things, which they neither know or feel responsible for,” writes birder and scholar Richard Pope. “It makes one desperate that one’s fellow humans are either unaware of or unconcerned by the disappearance of the birds and other life forms in our surroundings. It is awful to be a naturalist and watch the sixth extinction taking place before one’s eyes.”