And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise

by Mark Jaffe

Book Overview

A fascinating investigation into the reasons behind the extinction of birds on Guam becomes a cautionary environmental detective story as scientists discover that an imported snake with no natural... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671751077
• ISBN13: 9780671751074
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 283 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

well written, but with errors?

I bought this book because I moved to Guam and a search for books about Guam didn't bring up much. It was a well written and interesting book, but I wonder if everything in it is true. I know, for instance, that the monitor lizards they claim are a dull brown are actually a brilliant rainbow of colors that show as mostly light green. The Tangantangan that covers the island is not a vine, its a shrub and here in Guam, away from its natural habitat, it grows to small tree size.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

This account of efforts to understand and deal with threatened bird extinctions on Guam is a gem of a book. The paperback's blurbs focused on Jaffe's "ecological detective thriller." But I found most compelling the seamlessness of the book's widely-informed joined elements -- including biographical and political sketches of great pith, accessible population biology, and a good-scientists-versus-stupid-and-finally-thwarted-others story. The ecological culprit was not some natural substance, and not even one of homo sapiens' products (the book's index lists only three references to DDT). Nor was he us. But he was (and is) one of our fellows -- a little predator incredibly well adapted to feeding on birds' eggs. After the paucity and untimeliness of the governmental response to the Guamanian situation had sunk into my consciousness, it seemed ironic that the book ends with the United States Air Force establishing a 50-acre "environmental reclamation experiment" on Guam which Jaffe hopes will provide the setting for much more effective research on the culprit. Like The Lord of the Flies ends with her majesty's warship rescuing from themselves the band of island-stranded, warring boys.

A Gem

This account of efforts to understand and deal with threatened exotic-caused extinctions on Guam is a gem. The paper back's blurbs focus on Jaffe's "ecological detective thriller." But it's the seamlessness of the book's widely-informed joined elements -- including biographical and political sketches of great pith, accessible population biology, and How Modern Science Works to try to save avian species -- that's most compelling. This deftness in weaving many individually fascinating threads recalled for me Neal Ascherson's astonishing "Black Sea."The paperback's Index lists only passing references to DDT -- on pages 26, 27 and 72. Because the bad guy is not a chemical, not one of our products. No, he's one of us. And after the paucity and untimeliness of the legislative response to the Guamanian situation had sunk into my consciousness, it was ironic that in the end, an air force base on the island established the 50-acre "environmental reclamation experiment" Jaffe hopes could begin to turn it all around. Like the ending of William Golding's little masterpiece, with the navy warship rescuing the tribe of island-stranded boys from themselves.

silence of the birds

My God! You won't find any birds singing in this masterpiece! Rachel Carson has nothing on this guy! The DDT chapter broke my heart!!!