Band-tailed Pigeon: Wilderness Bird At Risk

As journalist Mathewson points out, band-tailed pigeons have lost too much of their natural habitats, and as a result the population of his favorite hunting bird has fallen precipitously. Mathewson writes of his personal relationship with the band-tailed pigeon as a frame to his information about its habits and the questions rising about its survival in an increasingly hostile environment. His text is lovingly illustrated with photographs and illustrations by David Hagerbaumer. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The band-tailed pigeon might be mistaken for the common domestic pigeon except for its woodland or mountain habitat and greater tendency to alight in trees. Its range is southwest British Columbia through the Pacific states and Rockies to Argentina. Mathewson offers a history of the bird and discusses its nesting activity, feeding patterns (they eat mostly berries), migration, and predators. In 1932, the pigeon was returned to the list of legal game birds that could be shot, and the gravest dangers the pigeon had ever faced lay ahead. Mathewson describes how more than 100 hunters would gather to shoot the birds. "Cheers and yells and laughter rang out after flocks were shot down." Today, after 12 years of total protection in British Columbia and Washington and a much-reduced kill in Oregon and California because of a two-bird limit, the band-tailed pigeon has seemingly stopped its decline. A moving portrait of this endangered species. George Cohen
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