Book Description
This annually updated reader is a compilation of current magazine, newspaper, and journal articles. Annual Editions titles are supported with study tools and links to related websites at our student website, Dushkin Online (www.dushkin.com/online/).
Customer Reviews:
I don't think many arabs and Muslims will buy this!.......2006-01-17
An article in this book, entitled "The Great War on Militant Islam" by Andrew McCarthy, is very alarming. Not only is the inaccuracy of the article disturbing, but also the language used in reference to Arabs and Muslims is extremely racist. Below is an excerpt from the text.
"Christianity and Judaism in particular - regard themselves, like Islam regards itself, as a final, divinely revealed truth. Yes, they too proselytize, and they have their occasional religiously motivated murderers. But those are aberrational and instantly condemned by the rest of the faithful. On the Planet Earth today, only Islam sports an unbridled faction that systematically inculcates hatred, systematically dehumanizes non-adherents, and systematically kills massively and indiscriminately."
Page 143
Surely if the editors allow this sort of thing to get through, then the rest of us must question the validity of other articles in the rest of the book!
Annual Editions : Global Issues 05/06 (Annual Editions : Global Issues).......2005-10-10
Good book and very useful for any Global Issues class.
Customer Reviews:
A Creepy Book , You Better Run and Hide Cause They're Coming!!! .......2007-03-07
Melanie and Cameron Doyle go camping in the wild at Mount Shasta when they see the biggest bird in North America, the California Condor. These birds don't attack people, but this Condor WANTS to attack people. And Cameron and Melanie discover something different about these Condors attacking them, but you have to read the book to find out!! This book is really good and you should read it.
Average customer rating:
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California Condors (Returning Wildlife)
John Becker
Manufacturer: KidHaven Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Nonfiction
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ASIN: 0737722924 |
Book Description
California condor populations began to decline when Europeans arrived on the Pacific Coast in the seventeenth century. By the 1980s the surviving handful of condors were removed from the wild and bred in captivity. Since 1992, captive-bred condors have been successfully reintroduced into the wild in California, Arizona, and Mexico.
Book Description
Ten thousand years ago, the California condor's shadow raced across the rock faces of canyon walls throughout the Southwest, but, over time, the majestic condor disappeared from this land-seemingly forever. Last seen in northern Arizona in 1924, the California condor was on the brink of extinction. In the early 1980s, scientists documented only twenty-two condors remaining in the wild, all in California. Thanks to a successful captive-breeding program, their numbers have increased dramatically, and dozens now fly free over northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Sophie A. H. Osborn's groundbreaking book, Condors in Canyon Country, tells the tragic but ultimately triumphant story of the condors of the Grand Canyon region. A natural storyteller, Osborn has written an in-depth, highly personal narrative that brings you along as the author and other condor biologists struggle to ensure the survival of the species. The book's kaleidoscopic photographs of these huge birds flying free over the Southwest are nearly as breathtaking as seeing California condors live. The only book of its kind, Condors in Canyon Country is a must-read for anyone passionate about endangered species and what humankind can do to save them.
Book Description
The California condor
has been described as a bird
"with one wing in the grave."
Flying on wings nearly ten feet wide from tip to tip, these birds thrived on the carcasses of animals like woolly mammoths. Then, as humans began dramatically reshaping North America, the continent's largest flying land bird started disappearing. By the beginning of the twentieth century, extinction seemed inevitable.
But small groups of passionate individuals refused to allow the condor to fade away, even as they fought over how and why the bird was to be saved. Scientists, farmers, developers, bird lovers, and government bureaucrats argued bitterly and often, in the process injuring one another and the species they were trying to save. In the late 1980s, the federal government made a wrenching decision -- the last remaining wild condors would be caught and taken to a pair of zoos, where they would be encouraged to breed with other captive condors.
Livid critics called the plan a recipe for extinction. After the zoo-based populations soared, the condors were released in the mountains of south-central California, and then into the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, and Baja California. Today the giant birds are nowhere near extinct.
The giant bird with "one wing in the grave" appears to be recovering, even as the wildlands it needs keep disappearing. But the story of this bird is more than the story of a vulture with a giant wingspan -- it is also the story of a wild and giant state that has become crowded and small, and of the behind-the-scenes dramas that have shaped the environmental movement. As told by John Nielsen, an environmental journalist and a native Californian, this is a fascinating tale of survival.
Customer Reviews:
A Near Death Experience.......2007-07-07
If cats have nine lives, then the California condor as a species must be their equal. These birds have stepped to the edge of the extinction cliff and ALMOST fallen to a crushing collapse. After reading their story, you have to wonder if the creator was playing a cruel joke on this ancient and giant bird. First, with the exception of the huge black body and their graceful soaring, they aren't what you would call "easy on the eyes." They have a number of disgusting habits, and to top it off, they settled on Southern California as home (i.e., this place is being consumed by development at an alarming rate).
Condors to the Brink and Back - covers this bird's life history all the way to the release of zoo raised birds into the wilds of California and Arizona. With each chapter that John Nielsen writes in their life history I felt like, "Okay, this is it. These birds aren't going to survive this one." In the end, the species (read: humans) which puts them against the ropes, is ultimately the same species which comes to their rescue. Nielsen introduces all the key players in what at times resembles a less-than-unified effort to save the mighty condor.
Nearing the end of the book, what becomes apparent is man's role as the crutch the fragile condor must lean against to survive. As more condors raised in captivity are released into the wild, their dependency on wildlife biologists and zoo care-takers can begin to crumble. Encouraging news about California condors breeding and fledging new birds in their natural habitat is happening with greater frequency and spreading over a wider range including Mexico.
Their longer term survival looks brighter and brighter. But some of the threats that put these birds on the brink of collapse are still present today in the form of lead pellets and bullets in downed game which the condors ingest and the ever shrinking range land which they inhabit. For the time being, we have the California condor back to grace our skies, and play an important role as one of nature's big body snatchers.
Everything Condor.......2006-06-03
This is a really interesting book. Nielsen writes very well, and with an evident passion arising from his boyhood experiences with condors in southern California. Nielsen tells the story of the condor, what little we know of its history before the nineteenth century, the slaughter of the birds and the stealing of its eggs, and finally the sometimes comical efforts to save this profound species from extinction. The book is equally appealing to readers who are simply seeking a good story, and to those who are involved in other kinds of environmental protection efforts.
One particular part of the story surprised me. Nielsen interviewed Sandy Wilbur, the government biologist charged with developing a plan to save the condor immediately after the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973. According to Nielsen, Wilbur became a Christian after reading a book by C.S. Lewis, and it was his Christian beliefs that influenced his desire to preserve the condor. Wilbur believed that the condor was special because it was created by God, even though the bird had long outlived its evolutionary significance and was not necessary for any current ecosystem. This is a different kind of motivation for saving biodiversity, and the story is a nice complement to the many other individuals who have struggled to save such a memorable bird.
How one large bird journeyed to the very edge of extinction and came back makes for an exciting story.......2006-05-26
How one large bird journeyed to the very edge of extinction and came back makes for an exciting story: especially when related by a NPR environmental correspondent as in CONDOR; TO THE BRINK AND BACK - THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ONE GIANT BIRD. Here is where passionate reporting blends best with science, producing a moving story of how a small group of committed people refused to allow the condor to become extinct, joining forces to gather the last remaining wild condors to a pair of zoos where they were encouraged to breed with other captives. John Nielsen is a native Californian as well as an environmental writer, so he's in the perfect position to provide a survey of both California environmental politics and processes and natural history in this compelling account.
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch
Informative and a lot of fun to read.......2006-04-02
John Nielsen has clearly done his homework when it comes to understanding the fascinating history of the California Condor. He not only takes us through the natural history of condors from the Pleistocene to the present, he also introduces us to the remarkable cast of characters who have worked diligently for almost a century to prevent this species from disappearing. Written in an easy, engaging style, "Condor" combines ecology, history, and gossip to create a vivid picture of the challenges involved in saving a species that was more at home in the age of the mammoths than in the age of McMansions.
The Return of the Condor.......2006-02-28
American condors are not an easy bird to love, at least for many people. Their points of unattractiveness are many. The condor is a vulture, a creature that eats dead and rotting things by sticking its bald, red, ugly head into carcasses. When it needs to cool its feet, it urinates on them. Its sense of interior design for the caves in which it nests is to decorate the walls with feces and vomit. John Nielson, in _Condor: To the Brink and Back - The Life and Times of One Giant Bird_ (HarperCollins) admits to all this ugliness, but says the images vanish when the bird takes flight: "You may think there's no chance you could ever give a damn about this bird, but take my word for it: once you see the condor soaring, it owns you." The birds have inspired a great deal of fervent enthusiasm, which has of course pitted enthusiasts against such types as farmers and developers, but has also divided those who want to save the birds into warring factions when they disagree on the fundamentals of how to do so. The condor has survived, but even Nielsen admits it has long been a species with no ecological value. It has survived, barely so, despite its involvement with humans and now directly because of them.
The birds are amazing in many ways. They are one of the largest of flying birds, with a ten foot wing span. The finger-like feathers at the end of those wings are almost two feet long. As big as condors are, they were small scavenger birds compared to some of the others 1.6 million years ago in the Pleistocene, when they would have fed on mammoths, sloths, and saber-toothed cats. As Nielsen says, we'd pay plenty to get mammoths and saber-tooths back; what's it worth to keep an animal with the same history? Condors started being afflicted by humans who wiped out different mammalian species in the mid-1700s, and then by hunters who left their prey full of lead, and then by strychnine used to poison varmints, and then by collectors of their feathered skins and their eggs. By 1982 there were only about two dozen left. A great deal of basic research had to be done on the birds to get real understanding of how they lived. It was not until the 1980s, for instance, that it was learned by chance that condors are among the birds that "double clutch," laying a second egg in a season if they lose the first one. This meant that one egg could go to the zoo without making the flock smaller. Crews of condor-fanciers wore themselves out tagging condors in the wild or collecting the eggs; they called themselves "The Zombie Patrol" because as they staggered to the condor nest caves they were "filthy, smelly, bleeding, starving, stiff, and utterly exhausted." Eggs brought back (in a special padded suitcase) were hatched in the zoos. A program of simply tagging and releasing birds in the wild did not work; eventually all the last birds wound up as captives.
There has been enough success in captive breeding that condors raised in pens have been released into the wild. No one really can predict how this will go. Chicks raised this way are often fed by hand, or at least by hand puppet, a covering for a hand that looks very much like an adult condor head coming down with food in its beak. This was supposed to let chicks sense that they were in a condor family, but one keeper said, "It only took the chicks a few days to figure out that there were people behind the puppets." Wild birds do not need to be thinking of people as a source for nutrition (or for any other blessings, given how we have treated them). There was a program of "aversive therapy" to keep them from being too affectionate to or curious about humans, and another to teach them not to land on power lines. There are important philosophical issues here; are such birds raised so unnaturally really natural members of the environment, and what is it that we have gotten for the millions that have been spent to get them back in the air? If you only count numbers, there are about a hundred condors flying free now, which is a real success, although some biologists think this only shows how badly we have failed to keep the environment a place where condors could continue to make their homes independently. Perhaps it is only appropriate that this strange bird, hideously ugly in appearance and fabulously beautiful in the skies, should bring out the best and the worst in us, and that its unresolved story should be filled with ambivalent messages.
Customer Reviews:
Condor's Egg.......2001-04-20
This book contains beautiful illustrations. The minimal text is motivational for children who are discouraged by pages filled with words. However,the vocabulary is not easy and is definitely not for a beginning reader without support. Very informational.
Average customer rating:
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California Condor, The (Endangered in America)
Alvin Silverstien
Manufacturer: Millbrook Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0761302646 |
Average customer rating:
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Endangered Animals and Habitats - The Condor (Endangered Animals and Habitats)
Karen D. Povey
Manufacturer: Lucent Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
Nonfiction
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ASIN: 1560068647 |
Book Description
Since the end of the last Ice Age, condors have faced the perils of a changing environment, ultimately declining to the very brink of extinction. In a combined effort by zoos and government agencies, biologists are working to resurrect the California condor through a controversial captive breeding and release program.
Customer Reviews:
A Compelling Story.......2001-07-22
A well-researched and excellent addition to the series. Keep them coming! The author shows an understanding of the many problems confronting the condor and writes in an easy-to-read, well-organized format. Students and adults will find this a compelling story. School libraries will find this book to be a valuable resource for science and conservation classes. The reader will be left with the desire to follow the future of the condor with interest.
Average customer rating:
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California Condors (True Books: Animals)
Patricia A. Fink Martin
Manufacturer: Children's Press (CT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Northern Spotted Owls (True Books: Animals)
ASIN: 0516274708 |
Book Description
As the largest flying bird of North America, and one of the most endangered, the California Condor has been a source of tremendous interest and awe. This book offers up-to-date information on both the biology and conservation of the condor, as analyzed by the two most knowledgeable field biologists to have studied the species. The authors present first a thorough review of the history of condor studies and conservation efforts, then a detailed examination of the biology and recent decline of the species, and finally a hopeful plan for ultimate restoration of the species as a viable member of wild ecosystems. The book is illustrated with over a hundred superb color photographs covering numerous aspects of natural history of the species and recent conservation efforts on its behalf. Conservation of the California Condor has always been highly controversial, and this book does not shrink from controversy. Instead it offers a broad and insightful, but nevertheless sympathetic treatment of the many political conflicts of the past century.
Key Features:
- Reviews historical account of condor biology and conservation
- Analyzes nest site characteristics and limitations
- Studies breeding behavior and analyzes breeding effort and success
- Discusses mortality rates and the causes for their decline and efforts to improve reproduction
- Discusses the techniques, problems, and results of captive breeding and release programs
Customer Reviews:
The landmark work on the California condor.......2000-06-20
Noel and Helen Snyder have done an incredible job, of capturing the history of the condor, its biology and much of the essence of the politics of high-profile endangered species recovery. While this meticulously researched book that will fulfill a scientist's needs for accuracy and detail, they have managed to relate that information with a personal touch that provides the lay reader with the sense of the adventure that the authors are recounting. They have tiptoed through a political mine field to bring out the stories and facts so necessarily missed or mis-understood by the media and distant observors. While many books are available on the condor, not since Carl Koford's work in the 50's has someone so close to this species told its story.
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- Bringing the Jobs Home: How the Left Created the Outsourcing Crisis--and How We Can Fix It
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Books Index
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