As a kid living on the rez I always wanted to be an ornithologist. My brother Dewey Hosie always teased me about my early wayward thinking and interests back then and I laugh about that time today; but not always. We did not have a library in our community of White Shield (North Dakota) so I took refuge in my early studies on the bookmobile that visited our community every couple of weeks during the summer; I was always the first in line to get on the bookmobile, the last to get off, and I never gave up trying to talk the librarian into letting me check out more books than were allowed. (Librarian: Michael you know that you can only check out three books and you have six; Me (5 years old): I know but these three are just little books and I promise I wont lose them and Ill take really good care of them...please. Librarian: No. Only three. And your the last one again and we need to leave right now so you better choose which ones you want). Books with all their stories, information, pictures, surprises, words, and knowledge were (and remain) my drug of choice and I loved the birds I encountered in books (Yellow Birds :); I loved learning as much as I could about them, their origins, behaviors, why they had particular markings and calls, and so many, many other things. Im now reading Elizabeth Kolberts The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014) and it reminds me of my early readings in and love for ornithology. Kolberts book is a must read if you want get a bit of understanding of the destructive nature of humans and how we have earned our special status as creatures outside nature that are responsible for the human-caused extinction of other species on the planet. (This includes other humans of course but she has not, or may not address this in this book). Chapter 3 The Original Penguin brought ornithology home again for me. Kolbert chronicles the human-caused extinction of the Great Auk which is absolutely awful. She includes quotes from sailors during the 1600s that committed unbelievable depredations on the Great Auk populations off the coast of Newfoundlands northeast coast. In 1622 captain Richard Whitbourne describes how were herded, en masse, onto to boats (great auks could not fly) as food for the sailors, by hundreds at a time as if God had made the innocency of so poor a creature to become such an admirable instrument for the sustenation of Man (p. 60). A bit further down Kolbert cites another sailor that remarks that the great auk was used for more than food, the great auks of Funk Island were exploited in every way that human ingenuity could devise. They were used as fish bait, as a source of feathers for stuffing mattresses, and as fuel. She cites a sailor Englishman, Aaron Thomas, who dreadfully remarks, If you come for their Feathers you do not give yourself the trouble of killing them, but lay hold of one and pluck the best of the Feathers. You then turn the poor Penguin adrift, with his skin half naked and torn off, to perish at his leisure.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 19:43:46 +0000
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