Thalia educates Eva about how three bird species met their untimely extinction and how one man single-handedly saved a fourth by helping it get laid... by him??
gascast@grimmtidings.us
https://pmmusic.pro/
https://www.openmusicarchive.org/
Additional notes:
- On Passenger Pigeons
- A piece on what the flocks were like, the Lacey Act, and de-extinction advocates
- On their extinction
- On the Great Auk
- Much of this research comes from The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
- An online article on their extinction
- A few corrections and clarifications: I cannot find any information on what, if anything, the first conservation law in 1500s England actually did. “Natural philosopher” was the correct term for a natural scientist in Cuvier’s time. The term “scientist” was coined a few years before the Great Auk’s extinction
- On Bison
- Fun fact: the scientific name of the plains bison is “Bison bison bison.” This pairs with the grammatically correct sentence “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
- Most of this section comes from here
- Carolina Parakeet
- Unfortunately, there isn’t as much known about the Carolina parakeet. Here’s a good place to start
- On the fate of the last parakeet’s body, and the species as a whole
- George Archibald and Whooping Cranes
- His book “My Life With Cranes” is worth checking out.
- Fun(?) fact: Tex was killed by raccoons shortly after her chick hatched. Listen, this was a podcast on extinction. It felt grim enough without bringing this up.
- More on George and Tex
- An article on the ICF headquarters in Wisconsin, which is well worth a visit if you’re in Madison or the Dells
- Seriously, though, George Archibald is a living legend, and the people and birds of Earth would surely be worse off without him.
See you next time, where I will be making magic extremely mundane. -Thalia