The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet - Hardcover

by Scott Weidensaul (Author)

As populations fall and once-great migration multitudes wither away, the future of birds may seem grim. But surprisingly, from gnatcatchers and waterfowl to select groups of forest songbirds, some bird populations are soaring. Habitats and species that once neared extinction are now multiplying around the world because bird conservation is making things better.

The Return of the Oystercatcher explores the recovery efforts that are not only preventing declines in bird population, but helping birds to thrive. From the spectacular recovery of North American raptors, whose numbers have tripled in the last fifty years, to the mind-bending resurgence of the Canada goose in Maine--which increased its population by 146,000 percent during the same period--Scott Weidensaul shares amazing stories of hope and progress in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Weidensaul also depicts the initiatives at the heart of this recovery, from the hyperlocal to the hemispherically immense: wetlands restoration, raptor protection, and bans on harmful pesticides, as well as the US Farm Bill and the preservation of sovereign lands by Indigenous communities. The result is a roadmap of breathtaking environmental resilience in some of the most unlikely places, including a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, the vast boreal forest that stretches across Canada, a hereditary estate in England, and a watery wilderness at the edge of a Ukrainian war zone.

Because birds are so diverse, so ubiquitous, and cover virtually every square mile of the Earth's surface, the fight to save the birds is also one to save the world. The Return of the Oystercatcher is an inspiring story of what's working in bird conservation--and what can work for the rest of the planet.

Back Jacket

Praise for A World on the Wing

"[A] gripping journey alongside the world's feathered wanderers and the people who study them. . . . Brims with spectacle. . . . As the birds flit through these pages, but with ever less frequency through our lives, we can only hope that birders and non-birders alike take inspiration and a call to action from A World on the Wing. This is the kind of book we've been waiting for."
--Christian Cooper, New York Times

"A World on the Wing is a paean to the beauty of data, viewed in masses, and to citizen science taking ornithology by storm. . . . Mr. Weidensaul offers the astonishment of birds' travels, deep concern for their populations and hope for their future in well-measured, beautifully realized doses."
--Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal

"I'm not a birder, but Weidensaul persuades me that I could be, and that a greater appreciation of the movement and behaviour of migratory birds might bring me into closer contact with what it means to be a living thing on Earth. . . . [Weidensaul is] a master storyteller. . . . What emerges is an emphatic statement of confidence in nature's resilience--a vision of nature as a force that we and our science are irrefutably a part of."
--Ashish Ghadiali, The Guardian