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Rip Van Winkle’s Crow Killing Contest

10,000 Birds

The “Crow Down” is a “hunting contest” where both adults and children slaughter as many crows as they possibly can in two days. On the website he reminisces fondly about his “best hunt,” where he killed 3,125 crows in 9 days, bringing to mind the days when people slaughtered seemingly endless flocks of passenger pigeons and herds of buffalo.

Killing 272
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A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction

10,000 Birds

While the Dodo and the Triceratops may be more famous for being extinct, the scale of the slaughter required to eradicate billions of birds makes this species perhaps the most enduring symbol of our culture’s predilection for waste and folly. What, you may ask, is left to do but sigh sadly and shake our heads?

Slaughter 226
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Comebackers

10,000 Birds

For mankind to snatch away a species’ very existence is wrong on so many levels that I can’t begin to explain them. However, despite our best efforts to wipe them off the face of the earth, some of the more vulnerable species have managed to hang on. this species breeds. Here are some U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Albatross 228
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The Passenger Pigeon & A Message From Martha: One Pigeon, Two Book Reviews

10,000 Birds

It is the 100th Anniversary of the extinction of the species known as the Passenger Pigeon and writers are paying attention. Errol Fuller’s The Passenger Pigeon is a beautifully illustrated, elegantly written “celebration” of the passenger pigeon and the artists who illustrated and photographed the species.

2014 163
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Highs and Lows from the Champions of the Flyway Bird Race in Eilat, Israel

10,000 Birds

Today, I am writing about another very birdy place and an event that I was very fortunate to have experienced, the Champions of the Flyway Bird Race in Eilat, Israel. It might not be Costa Rica, but it is one of the most important, birdiest events on the planet, and checking it out was a dream come true. This is a Masked Shrike.

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The Nonessential Whooping Crane

10,000 Birds

It may be as sick as deliberately targeting an endangered species for death. Birders know that the light’s not always perfect or even particularly good when you’re trying to tell one species from another. Speculation is useless in acts of vandalism. It may be as simple as trying to hit the big white one. The big white one. It flies on.

2011 244
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A Little Win

10,000 Birds

There seem to be so many that some days the negative stories just seem to pile up in my reader, species lost here, habitat destroyed there, poisoning, illegal persecution, the list can seem endless. It can be difficult not to feel impotent and under attack from all sides.

Morocco 177