KEEPING ALL THE PIECES: Perspectives on Natural...
KEEPING ALL THE PIECES: Perspectives on Natural History and the Environment by Whit Gibbons (Smithsonian Institution Press: $16.95; 182 pp., paperback original). In these collected columns, Gibbons stresses the inter-connectedness of all living things, which he compares to the bricks in a building: It may be possible to remove a few without the structure collapsing, but the removal of a single brick inevitably weakens the whole. To illustrate his point, he discusses the results of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet and other animals. Gibbon’s essays offer a palatable introduction to ecology for people who don’t understand all the “fuss” over the threat to endangered species.
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