Belonging on an island : birds, extinction, and evolution in Hawaii / Daniel Lewis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lewis, Daniel, 1959- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Birds--Extinction.

Birds.

Island ecology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A lively, rich natural history of Hawaiian birds that challenges existing ideas about what constitutes biocultural nativeness and belonging This natural history takes readers on a thousand-year journey as it explores the Hawaiian Islands' beautiful birds and a variety of topics including extinction, evolution, survival, conservationists and their work, and, most significantly, the concept of belonging. Author Daniel Lewis, an award-winning historian and globe-traveling amateur birder, builds this lively text around the stories of four species-the Stumbling Moa-Nalo, the Kaua'I 'O'o, the Palila, and the Japanese White-Eye. Lewis offers innovative ways to think about what it means to be native and proposes new definitions that apply to people as well as to birds. Being native, he argues, is a relative state influenced by factors including the passage of time, charisma, scarcity, utility to others, short-term evolutionary processes, and changing relationships with other organisms. This book also describes how bird conservation started in Hawai'i, and the naturalists and environmentalists who did extraordinary work.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

One. Sitting Ducks: Extinction, Humans, and Birds in the pre-European Contact Era

Two. Counting Extinction: Observing and Surveying the Kauaʻi ʻ Ō ʻ ō and Hawaiian Forest Bird Habitat

Three. Overcoming Extinction: Collectors, Stewardship, and the Palila

Four. Becoming Endemic: The White-eye, the Territorial Government, the Hui Manu, and Introduced Species

Epilogue

Abbreviations

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-300-23546-1

OCLC:

1030892985