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The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving

10,000 Birds

According to some sources, when the so-called Pilgrims settled in for the First Thanksgiving Dinner with the local Native Americans, in 1620, they dined on Turkey, and this Turkey came from the Old World, from stock that was originally brought to Spain by Columbus. The Spanish Colonial Experience and Domestic Animals. Kiva 78(1):37–60.

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Listening to Falcons: The Peregrines of Tom Cade

10,000 Birds

His parents moved where opportunity beckoned, taking him from San Angelo, Texas, to Columbus, New Mexico, then to Dallas, and finally on to California. That summer of 1938, when he was ten years old, Cade read of two brothers, Frank and John Craighead, who wrote of their experiences with falcons in National Geographic.

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Come@Me: Don’t Mourn for Extinct Birds

10,000 Birds

The causes were the usual reasons for island extinction—deforestation by both humans and invasive plants that crowded out native plants, hunting, and invasive rats, mongoose, monkeys, and, of course, feral cats. Is it any wonder that Pink Pigeons were on the brink of extinction when humans intervened? I know, that’s harsh.

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