TY - BOOK ID - 77892870 TI - Saving American birds PY - 1992 SN - 0813023629 9780813023625 0813011299 9780813011295 PB - Gainesville University Press of Florida DB - UniCat KW - Birds KW - Audubon societies KW - Ornithologists KW - Vertebrates KW - Zoology KW - Health & Biological Sciences KW - Aves KW - Avian fauna KW - Avifauna KW - Wild birds KW - Amniotes KW - Ornithology KW - Naturalists KW - Zoologists KW - Conservation KW - History. KW - History KW - Societies, etc. KW - Pearson, T. Gilbert KW - Pearson, Thomas Gilbert, KW - National Audubon Society KW - National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals KW - Audubon Society UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77892870 AB - T. Gilbert Pearson (1873-1943) was one of the most influential ornithologists in North America, crusading for the cause of conservation a century before the modern movement to save the earth's resources. Working in the American Ornithologists' Union, Pearson and other pioneering conservationists radically altered public attitudes toward birds, lobbied laws through state legislatures, and involved the national government in bird protection. Their activities, documented in. This biography of Pearson's early career, spearheaded the movement that eventually led to today's Audubon societies. As a boy in rural Florida, Pearson was an avid--even obsessive--"egger." On a particularly lucrative day in 1889 he gathered eggs from the nests of a hawk, mockingbird, grackle, and ground dove and was only momentarily stymied by the discovery of five eggs in a crow's nest located high in a 100-foot pine tree. "Putting three of the eggs in my mouth and. Taking two in my hand, I descended without mishap," he reported. His love for birds grew in company with an increasing alarm at the extent to which they were killed, not just for sport but for decorating hats, too. In 1892, in college in North Carolina, he participated in a student oratory contest, in which he described the cruelties of plume hunting, concluding, "O fashion! how many crimes are done in thy name!" After joining the AOU in 1891, Pearson organized efforts. To protect birds that were vulnerable to commercial exploitation and unregulated hunting. In 1902 he founded the Audubon Society of North Carolina, the South's first state agency for wildlife. By 1911, the year this account ends, Pearson had become the first full-time leader of the National Association of Audubon Societies. He continued his work with the national organization until 1934, helping to build the association into the strong international force for. Conservation that it is today. ER -