10-19: Ten Birds that Changed the World with Stephen Moss
5/14/202643 min
Birds and humanity have interacted for as long as there has been humanity, and various bird species have proven to be constants, influencing mythologies, religions, art, economics, and even warfare. Natural history, as it turns out, is human history, and that is the idea behind the book 10 Birds that Changed the World. Stephen Moss is the author, he is one of Britain's most influential nature writers and broadcasters. You can find him writing a monthly Birdwatch column for the Guardian and appearing regularly on BBC Radio, among many other places.
Also, a recent hantavirus outbreak on a nature cruise has the wider world looking at birders and landfills with a critical eye, even though birders have been part of the solution.
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First 90 secondsNate Swick· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hello. Happy spring. Welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association. I am your host, Nate Swick. Birding has once again broken containment and is a topic of discussion among the wider world, though unfortunately it is not in the life-affirming, wholly positive way that we have become so familiar with over the last few years. No, a birding and nature tour ship is ground zero for a recent hantavirus infection that has sadly led to the deaths of three people traveling on that ship. Uh, the boat, the MV Hondias, disembarked from Ushuaia in southern Argentina in early April and was scheduled to make landfall at several isolated islands in the Atlantic. Islands that feature endemic bird species that are obviously otherwise very, very difficult to encounter. Stopping at places like St. Helena, Sandwich Islands, and the appropriately named Inaccessible Island, which is home to the delightfully named Inaccessible Island Rail, which is surprisingly accessible, as it were, provided you have access to the island, which is... Well, the name says it. Many of these islands feature large seabird colonies, and because of that, biological protocols on the MV Hondias are extremely, extremely strict. So the question became: How did the people on this boat come in contact with this virus that is primarily associated with exposure