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Come@Me: Don’t Mourn for Extinct Birds

10,000 Birds

Pink pigeon near Le Pétrin, Mauritius by Michael Hanselmann, used under Creative Commons license. A bit of background: Pink Pigeons are medium-sized, pink/gray/ brown birds found on the island of Mauritius, Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. Is it any wonder that Pink Pigeons were on the brink of extinction when humans intervened?

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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

In fact, the Dodo belonged to a clade (sometimes called Raphini) of 15 remarkable, bizarre, intriguing island-adapted pigeons, some of which are still alive today, but eight of which have been hacked from the tree of life, driven to extinction by humans. The Dodo lived on Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

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Extinction Week on 10,000 Birds

10,000 Birds

Mauritius Night-Heron. What right do we have to even exist when our very existence as humanity is what has caused a rate of extinction not seen except during cataclysmic events? Mauritius Owl. They are all as dead as a Dodo but they don’t even have the dignity of being remembered. Olson’s Petrel. Viti Levu Scrubfowl.

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Listening to Falcons: The Peregrines of Tom Cade

10,000 Birds

But it wasn’t until he studied falconry’s appeal to centuries-old cultures–the Persians, English, Dutch, French, Chinese, Russians, and people of the Middle East–that Cade realized the sport of kings was slowly dying and would disappear along with the age-old mystique of a raptor returning to the human who trained her.

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Parrots: Brazil’s Colorful Avian Clowns

10,000 Birds

With their strong flight and capability to disperse, parrots have managed to colonize almost every major island group from Tahiti to Mauritius to Dominica. There are nectar feeders, dedicated frugivores, specialized seed predators and more. There seems to be a parrot for almost any ecological situation.

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The man who saved species

10,000 Birds

Both species had undergone massive declines since the arrival of humans and where in a perilous position in the 1970s. The Black Robin was restricted to a single tiny island off the Chathams, and apparently had been for decades, with a world population of around 30 birds.

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When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

Animal rights is concerned with preventing the suffering or even use of animals by humans. To quote Wikipedia the effects it has on the body: In humans, the symptoms of poisoning normally appear between 30 minutes and three hours after exposure.