Customer Reviews

The Carolina Parakeet: Glimpses of a Vanished Bird

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Snyder does a superb job of presenting the historical status of a species now extinct. He located much reference literature never before discussed or published. In the case of this species, now certainly extinct, Snyder portrays how the arrogance of certain men may have eliminated any chance of saving the species. Great library reference for any avian biologist.

It has been two years or so since I read the book so my mindset is not fresh. However, I found this book to be interesting and well worth reading if you have an interest in Carolina Parakeet. Snyder presents details about the bird's Florida range and postulates that the species may have been present into the 1930's. I found the information fascinating and worth considering.

This book was a disappointment. I'm very interested in the topic but much of the book reads like a scientific paper. There is a lot of good, interesting information but, unless you're particularly interested in Carolina parakeets, as I am, suffering through the writing is probably not worth it.

The crux of the book is his postulation that the parakeets diet of cockleburs made them toxic to most predators thus their bright feathers, gregariousness and ability to "sleep" at night. These abilities were no match against humans who killed them with ease. One shot took out droves and then the survivors would gather around the fallen, making shooting the rest even easier.

Because cockleburs grow around human dwellings the parakeet was drawn to areas where they came in contact with livestock and other sources of exotic diseases, conceivably nail in the coffin for the parakeet.