WEBVTT - For the Birds 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:23.636 Pushkin. Imagine there's a place someone like a window open. 0:00:27.836 --> 0:00:30.436 Imagine there's a place in our world where the known 0:00:30.556 --> 0:00:36.236 things go. A corridor of the mind lined with metal 0:00:36.236 --> 0:00:42.516 file cases, stocked with dead birds, lined up in rows, yellow, lime, green, blue, 0:00:42.996 --> 0:00:47.836 flame red like gems in a jewel case. This place, 0:00:48.396 --> 0:00:52.636 this aviary, stores the facts that matter and matters of fact. 0:00:53.436 --> 0:00:56.916 It lies in a time between now and then. The 0:00:57.076 --> 0:01:03.436 sign on the door reads the last Archive. Step outside 0:01:03.516 --> 0:01:06.036 to a house in Silver Spring, Maryland, in the year 0:01:06.156 --> 0:01:12.596 nineteen fifty eight, Rachel Carson, a nature writer, had just 0:01:12.636 --> 0:01:16.796 started work on a new book. She hadn't decided what 0:01:16.836 --> 0:01:18.756 to call it yet, but she knew what she wanted 0:01:18.796 --> 0:01:22.956 to say. People all over the country bird lovers noticed 0:01:22.996 --> 0:01:26.916 something in nineteen fifty eight. When spring came, the birds 0:01:26.916 --> 0:01:30.796 didn't come. The robins didn't come. The tufted titmis didn't come, 0:01:31.316 --> 0:01:35.916 the songbirds, the shore birds. There were just very few birds. 0:01:36.716 --> 0:01:40.156 Carson threw herself into a world of research, even though 0:01:40.156 --> 0:01:43.836 she was busy, exhausted. She was taking care of both 0:01:43.836 --> 0:01:46.476 her adopted son, a six year old boy named Roger, 0:01:46.956 --> 0:01:49.436 and her eighty nine year old mother, who was dying. 0:01:50.436 --> 0:01:54.516 Carson read and she researched all summer. That fall, the 0:01:54.596 --> 0:01:58.156 postman brought a package to her door, a gift for Roger. 0:01:59.156 --> 0:02:08.916 It was a vinyl record, American Bird Songs, Volume one. 0:02:09.996 --> 0:02:13.516 Here are the songs and calls of sixty familiar birds 0:02:13.956 --> 0:02:16.836 as recorded in the woods, fields and gardens of North 0:02:16.876 --> 0:02:22.596 America the Laboratory of Ornithology at Carnell University. Some of 0:02:22.636 --> 0:02:26.756 the birds are widely distributed, others are restricted to special habitat. 0:02:26.876 --> 0:02:30.036 Roger listened to this record over and over. Carson sat 0:02:30.036 --> 0:02:31.796 down to write a thank you note to the sender. 0:02:32.196 --> 0:02:33.756 One of our actors is going to read it. But 0:02:33.916 --> 0:02:36.076 let me just say first that I've listened to recordings 0:02:36.076 --> 0:02:38.636 of the actual Rachel Carson, who has sort of an 0:02:38.636 --> 0:02:41.636 odd voice, and this really is what she sounds like, 0:02:42.156 --> 0:02:45.076 so much so that it gives me the chills. The 0:02:45.196 --> 0:02:48.956 record of bird Song that came Friday gave Roger the 0:02:49.076 --> 0:02:53.636 greatest delight, First the thrill of receiving a package by mail, 0:02:54.156 --> 0:02:57.916 then the pleasure in the record itself. He has a 0:02:58.036 --> 0:03:01.316 very sweet feeling for all living things and loves to 0:03:01.356 --> 0:03:04.036 go out with me and look and listen to all 0:03:04.076 --> 0:03:07.556 that goes on. I know he will have great pleasure 0:03:07.676 --> 0:03:11.836 in recognizing the song from this record, First the mocking 0:03:11.916 --> 0:03:15.636 bird that still pours his song down our chimney, then 0:03:15.676 --> 0:03:19.356 the cardinals that begin to whistle in January, and all 0:03:19.396 --> 0:03:23.876 the rest. There was a special and unheralded thrill for 0:03:23.996 --> 0:03:28.116 me in the record. During the song of the wood peewee, 0:03:28.476 --> 0:03:32.476 I heard in the background the unmistakable voice of the veery, 0:03:33.236 --> 0:03:37.036 not once, but several times. Of all, the bird song 0:03:37.276 --> 0:03:45.556 that has the quality of purest magic for me, considered 0:03:45.556 --> 0:03:50.316 America's foremost songbird is the hermit thrush, now singing from 0:03:50.316 --> 0:03:53.996 a balsam spire in the Adirondack Mountains. How do you 0:03:53.996 --> 0:03:57.036 even record a hermit thrush atop a balsam spire in 0:03:57.076 --> 0:04:00.436 the Adirondack Mountains? And what happened to the birds in 0:04:00.516 --> 0:04:07.516 nineteen fifty eight? Welcome to the last Archive, the show 0:04:07.516 --> 0:04:09.556 about how we know what we know and why it 0:04:09.596 --> 0:04:12.796 seems lately as if we don't know anything anymore. A 0:04:12.836 --> 0:04:15.196 while ago, when I was researching an essay about Rachel 0:04:15.196 --> 0:04:18.036 Carson for The New Yorker, I got completely lost in 0:04:18.036 --> 0:04:21.356 these recordings of bird songs. Carson was writing a book 0:04:21.356 --> 0:04:24.076 while Roger played these thirty threes, over and over again. 0:04:24.596 --> 0:04:27.916 It was called Silent Spring, and it changed the world. 0:04:28.916 --> 0:04:31.196 But I can't shake the feeling that if you're writing 0:04:31.196 --> 0:04:35.396 sound Spring now, nothing would change. Carson is to me 0:04:35.436 --> 0:04:37.956 a kind of canary in a coal mine, a warning. 0:04:38.556 --> 0:04:40.836 People were able to listen to her then and to 0:04:40.876 --> 0:04:43.476 act on what she said in a way that people 0:04:43.516 --> 0:04:45.836 don't listen to warnings and act on them these days 0:04:46.396 --> 0:04:50.476 until it seems it's too late. This season, we've been 0:04:50.476 --> 0:04:53.076 trying to solve a Who've done it? Who killed Truth? 0:04:53.596 --> 0:04:56.436 And this might sound nuts, but I decided to do 0:04:56.436 --> 0:05:00.036 what I thought maybe Carson would do. She would ask 0:05:00.116 --> 0:05:17.236 the birds next, the veries descending spirals. Rachel Carson was 0:05:17.276 --> 0:05:19.956 born in western Pennsylvania in nineteen oh seven on a 0:05:19.996 --> 0:05:23.556 sixty five acre farm along the Allegheny River. Her mother 0:05:23.636 --> 0:05:25.796 took her for long walks, teaching her the names and 0:05:25.836 --> 0:05:29.116 songs of all the birds. This is almost always how 0:05:29.116 --> 0:05:32.516 it works, parent to child, the passing on of a 0:05:32.596 --> 0:05:36.876 body of knowledge. All her life, Carson was fascinated by birds. 0:05:37.796 --> 0:05:42.636 Wherever Carson went, she'd listen, and then there were the 0:05:42.676 --> 0:05:46.156 sounds of other smaller birds, the rattling call of the 0:05:46.236 --> 0:05:50.556 kingfisher that perched between forays after fish on the posts 0:05:50.556 --> 0:05:53.796 of the dock, the call of the phoebe that nested 0:05:53.876 --> 0:05:57.236 under the eaves of the cabin, the red starts that 0:05:57.676 --> 0:06:00.316 foraged in the birches on the hill behind the cabin, 0:06:00.396 --> 0:06:03.916 and forever, it seemed to me asked each other the 0:06:04.036 --> 0:06:07.836 way to wiscast it, for I could easily twist their 0:06:07.876 --> 0:06:20.156 syllables into the witch's wiscassette witch's wiscassette. The oven bird 0:06:20.836 --> 0:06:29.796 sometimes called teacher bird from its song. People have always 0:06:29.836 --> 0:06:31.876 listened to birds, and they've been trying to write down 0:06:31.916 --> 0:06:35.796 their songs for thousands of years. A lot of birds, 0:06:35.796 --> 0:06:38.556 like the cuckoo or the chickadee, are named after the 0:06:38.596 --> 0:06:41.636 songs they sing. The first person to try to render 0:06:41.676 --> 0:06:45.716 birdsong in musical notation did that in the year sixteen fifty. 0:06:46.396 --> 0:06:49.596 Eighteenth century scholars then tried to understand birdsong not as 0:06:49.756 --> 0:06:53.756 music but as language, and people started trying to record 0:06:53.796 --> 0:06:56.676 the sound of birds in eighteen eighty nine, almost as 0:06:56.676 --> 0:07:00.036 soon as the phonograph was invented. As a little girl, 0:07:00.116 --> 0:07:02.716 Chursen kept a list of birds, writing them down in 0:07:02.716 --> 0:07:06.116 a notebook when she spotted them. Counting birds making bird 0:07:06.156 --> 0:07:08.916 lists had just become a hobby in the United States. 0:07:09.756 --> 0:07:13.916 Bird enthusiasts hoped this hobby would replace bird hunting because 0:07:13.916 --> 0:07:16.836 people had begun to notice that certain species of birds 0:07:17.116 --> 0:07:26.116 were disappearing, especially one, the passenger pigeon a dove. In 0:07:26.196 --> 0:07:29.756 the seventeenth century, over North America, flocks of passenger pigeons 0:07:29.836 --> 0:07:32.356 rushing across the sky could block out the sun for 0:07:32.476 --> 0:07:36.436 hours and hours and hours. The flocks were huge, some 0:07:36.676 --> 0:07:40.116 estimated more than two hundred miles long. You could knock 0:07:40.156 --> 0:07:43.036 passenger pigeons out of the sky with a stick by 0:07:43.036 --> 0:07:47.156 the dozens. People ate pigeon pot pie, broiled pigeons, roast pigeons, 0:07:47.156 --> 0:07:51.196 stuffed pigeon, you get the idea. They gorged on pigeons. 0:07:52.156 --> 0:07:55.036 By the middle of the nineteenth century, shooting passenger pigeons 0:07:55.036 --> 0:07:58.036 had become a sport. In eighteen sixty nine, one hunter 0:07:58.076 --> 0:07:59.836 made a bet that he could kill five hundred in 0:07:59.876 --> 0:08:03.876 a single day. Took him only nine hours. Hunters would 0:08:03.956 --> 0:08:07.236 ride wagons out to pigeon nesting sites and slaughter them 0:08:07.236 --> 0:08:09.796 by the thousands, then ship the carcass as to cities 0:08:09.796 --> 0:08:13.116 by train on ice cars. You could make a lot 0:08:13.116 --> 0:08:16.236 of money shooting passenger pigeons, or you could just do 0:08:16.276 --> 0:08:20.676 it for practice. Dead birds became a fashion. Like fur coats. 0:08:21.196 --> 0:08:27.116 Women wore bird feathers on their hats, and sometimes whole birds, terns, herons, gulls, egrets. 0:08:27.636 --> 0:08:30.316 In eighteen eighty six, an ornithologist in New York counted 0:08:30.356 --> 0:08:33.036 the birds on women's hats. He spotted one hundred and 0:08:33.036 --> 0:08:38.316 seventy four birds from forty species in just two days. Finally, 0:08:38.316 --> 0:08:42.116 by eighteen ninety, people began to notice the passenger pigeons 0:08:42.276 --> 0:08:46.716 had disappeared. Spring came and the flocks didn't come back. 0:08:47.516 --> 0:08:51.276 Some people thought they'd migrated to Argentina or something. Those 0:08:51.316 --> 0:08:55.956 are the bird, declined denialists, but most people weren't denialists. 0:08:56.636 --> 0:09:00.556 Newspaper writers began to lament this sad passing their children 0:09:00.596 --> 0:09:04.436 would never know a passenger pigeon. Toronto Globe and Mail, 0:09:04.916 --> 0:09:09.876 June thirtieth, nineteen hundred. The present generation knows little or 0:09:09.956 --> 0:09:14.196 nothing of wild pigeons except by hearsay, and is apt 0:09:14.276 --> 0:09:16.996 to scoff at the stories of old timers when they 0:09:17.036 --> 0:09:20.076 tell of the enormous flocks of these beautiful birds that 0:09:20.236 --> 0:09:23.636 numbered millions and fairly darkened the face of the sun 0:09:23.876 --> 0:09:27.236 in their flight, or actually broke down large lines of 0:09:27.316 --> 0:09:30.676 trees when they sit on it. Some people tried to 0:09:30.676 --> 0:09:34.476 do something. They founded the first conservation movements, the Audubon Society, 0:09:34.516 --> 0:09:37.676 the American Ornithologists Union. I believe you have an announcement 0:09:37.716 --> 0:09:40.516 to make. They held gatherings like this one. On December ninth, 0:09:40.676 --> 0:09:44.156 nineteen o nine in New York, someone proposed a reward 0:09:44.196 --> 0:09:47.156 of one hundred dollars for a freshly killed passenger pigeon. 0:09:47.796 --> 0:09:50.996 The idea was to preserve it for posterity or for science, 0:09:51.156 --> 0:09:54.556 or both, but people still had misgivings about killing birds, 0:09:54.996 --> 0:10:03.836 even for sciences. You have something to say, Indeed, sir, 0:10:04.436 --> 0:10:08.196 I would not kill a specimen for one thousand dollars, 0:10:08.196 --> 0:10:10.996 even to prove that I had seen one. And I 0:10:11.036 --> 0:10:15.476 wish that everyone else feels as I do. All offers 0:10:15.596 --> 0:10:20.276 for skins or dead birds ought to be withdrawn because 0:10:20.316 --> 0:10:23.876 at the present crisis, these might result in killing the 0:10:24.036 --> 0:10:30.036 last pair. Yes, I wish to withdraw my offer of 0:10:30.196 --> 0:10:37.036 one thousand dollars for a freshly killed passenger pigeon. Well, 0:10:37.116 --> 0:10:40.876 then why not let your offer stem for the location 0:10:40.916 --> 0:10:44.636 of a live specimen. I would gladly give two hundred 0:10:44.676 --> 0:10:50.196 dollars for that. I am authorized to offer the following 0:10:50.236 --> 0:10:55.276 award three hundred dollars for first information of a nesting 0:10:55.356 --> 0:11:04.116 pair of wild passenger pigeons undisturbed. Once they finally got organized, 0:11:04.156 --> 0:11:06.236 bird lovers would go on to have a lot of influence. 0:11:06.876 --> 0:11:11.476 But for the passenger pigeon, it came to eight Boston Globe, 0:11:11.556 --> 0:11:17.036 December eighteenth, nineteen ten. One solitary passenger pigeon, ending her 0:11:17.076 --> 0:11:21.196 life at the Zoological Garden in Cincinnati, is today all 0:11:21.236 --> 0:11:24.236 that remains of an American species that early in the 0:11:24.316 --> 0:11:30.396 last century swarmed over the continent in flocks numbering billions. 0:11:30.396 --> 0:11:35.116 Her name was Martha. When Rachel Carson was seven years old, Martha, 0:11:35.356 --> 0:11:39.396 the last passenger pigeon, died The next year, eight year 0:11:39.396 --> 0:11:42.236 old Rachel wrote her very first story. It's about a 0:11:42.276 --> 0:11:45.436 pair of friends looking for a house. She kept on 0:11:45.516 --> 0:11:51.916 writing and writing about birds. Countless discoveries made the day memorable. 0:11:52.396 --> 0:11:57.156 The bob White's nest tightly packed with eggs, the oriole's 0:11:57.236 --> 0:12:01.996 aerial cradle, the framework of sticks which the cuckoo calls 0:12:02.076 --> 0:12:05.476 a nest, and the lichen covered home of the humming 0:12:05.476 --> 0:12:12.756 bird Carson went to college and then in nineteen thirty 0:12:12.756 --> 0:12:15.636 two to graduate school, enrolling in a PhD program at 0:12:15.676 --> 0:12:19.796 Johns Hopkins studying zoology, but after a few years she 0:12:19.836 --> 0:12:22.036 had to drop out to take a job to feed 0:12:22.076 --> 0:12:25.436 her family. She never married, but during the depression she 0:12:25.516 --> 0:12:28.836 supported her parents and her sister and brother and their 0:12:28.916 --> 0:12:31.876 kids too. She started working for what became the US 0:12:31.956 --> 0:12:35.996 Fish and Wildlife Service, mainly writing reports and producing a 0:12:36.116 --> 0:12:40.396 radio program. She kept on thinking about birds, though, and 0:12:40.476 --> 0:12:43.756 so do a lot of other people. During the Second 0:12:43.796 --> 0:12:46.116 World War, the BBC tried to keep up its own 0:12:46.196 --> 0:12:49.276 long standing tradition of broadcasting bird song over the radio 0:12:49.796 --> 0:12:52.716 to help people keep calm and carry on. But in 0:12:52.756 --> 0:12:55.196 this recording you can hear the sound of Royal Air 0:12:55.196 --> 0:13:04.436 Force bombers flying above the birds. After the war, Rachel 0:13:04.436 --> 0:13:08.036 Carson wrote a beautiful, stirring study of the sea. The 0:13:08.156 --> 0:13:10.196 Sea Around Us, appeared in The New Yorker as a 0:13:10.236 --> 0:13:13.396 profile of the Sea, the New Yorker's first ever profile 0:13:13.436 --> 0:13:16.636 of something other than a person who won a National 0:13:16.676 --> 0:13:19.276 Book Award, who was on the New York Times bestseller 0:13:19.316 --> 0:13:22.236 list for a record breaking eighty six weeks. She bought 0:13:22.236 --> 0:13:25.436 a little summer house in Maine, where she wrote another bestseller, 0:13:25.836 --> 0:13:29.276 The Edge of the Sea. In nineteen fifty five. She 0:13:29.396 --> 0:13:31.356 was still taking care of all her family, her mother 0:13:31.436 --> 0:13:37.316 and niece, and her niece's little boy, Roger. That year, 0:13:37.796 --> 0:13:40.476 Carson took Roger for a walk in the woods. He 0:13:40.716 --> 0:13:47.236 was three. Roger went along to listen for veeries, his 0:13:47.396 --> 0:13:50.836 first bird walk, I guess, and I'd like to have 0:13:50.876 --> 0:13:54.636 had a movie. He was told we'd have to be quiet, 0:13:55.156 --> 0:13:59.796 so he tiptoed along the path with elaborate caution, talking 0:13:59.836 --> 0:14:03.316 in a loud whisper. He seemed to find the whole 0:14:03.356 --> 0:14:14.156 experience very exciting. Roger's still around. My producer Ben, and 0:14:14.156 --> 0:14:15.636 I'd drove out to his house to meet him and 0:14:15.636 --> 0:14:18.756 his wife, Wendy and their old yellow lab. I came 0:14:18.756 --> 0:14:21.196 to talk about birds and about that album A Bird 0:14:21.236 --> 0:14:24.156 Song had come in the mail in nineteen fifty eight. 0:14:27.516 --> 0:14:29.596 And would you any more microphones? Yeah? I see that. 0:14:29.636 --> 0:14:32.876 I shouldn't have even bothered with the recording. Roger's in 0:14:32.876 --> 0:14:35.756 the recording business. That's why his house is full of microphones. 0:14:36.396 --> 0:14:39.196 But as for birds, he never got the bug the 0:14:39.196 --> 0:14:43.436 way Rachel Carson did. She tried very hard, but you know, 0:14:43.996 --> 0:14:47.236 the truth is I was a little boy, and you 0:14:47.276 --> 0:14:53.076 know I appreciated it, and I appreciate the birds. But 0:14:53.076 --> 0:14:56.516 but you know, I was never the house in Maine 0:14:56.636 --> 0:14:58.756 had they used to have these stairs that would go 0:14:58.876 --> 0:15:01.196 down and she could go down there and lie there 0:15:01.236 --> 0:15:05.836 for three hours listening and looking at the birds, and 0:15:06.036 --> 0:15:10.676 you know, I'd be lucky to make five minutes. Roger 0:15:10.796 --> 0:15:12.596 was kind of embarrassed that he didn't turn out to 0:15:12.596 --> 0:15:15.716 be a bird expert. Carson said that he was as 0:15:15.796 --> 0:15:19.596 lively as seventeen crickets. He just couldn't sit still long enough, 0:15:20.316 --> 0:15:24.916 quietly enough to really watch birds. I get that I 0:15:24.916 --> 0:15:27.756 don't have the bird bug either. I have more of 0:15:27.756 --> 0:15:34.996 the dog bug. Hi, baby, get a word in here. 0:15:37.076 --> 0:15:38.676 There were a lot of birds at the bird feeder 0:15:38.716 --> 0:15:42.156 outside Roger's window. Neither of us had any idea what 0:15:42.196 --> 0:15:45.116 a single one of them was. Instead, we played with 0:15:45.156 --> 0:15:48.956 his dog. Something else we have in common. We've both 0:15:48.996 --> 0:15:52.276 been in love at different times with this album, The 0:15:52.436 --> 0:15:56.356 mocking Bird is a favorite, singing and ever changing medley, 0:15:56.796 --> 0:16:05.916 often repeating each phrase three to five times. The spring 0:16:05.916 --> 0:16:09.596 of nineteen fifty eight, after Roger turned six, that was 0:16:09.636 --> 0:16:12.956 the Silent Spring when birdwatchers noticed that there just weren't 0:16:12.956 --> 0:16:15.916 a lot of birds around. It turned out that the 0:16:15.916 --> 0:16:19.476 birds had been poisoned by DDT, a pesticide the towns 0:16:19.516 --> 0:16:23.196 had been spraying all over the country. Members of an 0:16:23.236 --> 0:16:27.356 organization called the Committee Against Mass Poisoning filed a lawsuit 0:16:27.356 --> 0:16:29.796 in New York to try to stop the spraying. They 0:16:29.756 --> 0:16:32.796 asked Carson to write about it. They also center that 0:16:32.836 --> 0:16:36.996 album Birdsong for Roger. Carson wanted to cover the trial, 0:16:37.476 --> 0:16:40.356 but taking care of Roger and her mother, she really 0:16:40.396 --> 0:16:43.636 wasn't in much of a position to. She thought, though, 0:16:43.836 --> 0:16:47.036 that another New Yorker writer maybe ought to cover the trial. 0:16:47.756 --> 0:16:50.556 It has occurred to me that eb White might be 0:16:50.716 --> 0:16:54.196 interested for various reasons, and it is the sort of 0:16:54.276 --> 0:16:57.516 thing he could be devastating about. If he chose, I 0:16:57.596 --> 0:17:00.716 thought I might write him. Eb White was one of 0:17:00.716 --> 0:17:04.436 the best loved writers in the country. Dear mister White, 0:17:05.196 --> 0:17:09.316 it would delight me beyond measure if you should be 0:17:09.476 --> 0:17:13.276 moved to take up your own pen against this nonsense, 0:17:13.676 --> 0:17:17.276 though that is far too mild a word. There is 0:17:17.316 --> 0:17:21.196 an enormous body effect waiting to support anyone who will 0:17:21.236 --> 0:17:24.036 speak out to the public, and I shall be happy 0:17:24.076 --> 0:17:29.396 to supply the references. Rachel Carson. White said no, that 0:17:29.676 --> 0:17:32.676 Carson should write the article. He later told her that 0:17:32.676 --> 0:17:35.676 he himself didn't know a chlorinated hydrocarbon from a squash bug, 0:17:36.956 --> 0:17:39.516 and so Carson did write the article. It took her 0:17:39.516 --> 0:17:41.916 four years and agreed to the size of a book. 0:17:42.596 --> 0:17:45.716 It's the book she'd always be known for. It reads 0:17:45.716 --> 0:17:50.876 to me like a eulogy for the last passenger pigeon Martha, 0:17:50.956 --> 0:17:53.316 as if all the birds were the last of their species, 0:17:53.516 --> 0:18:01.196 as if all the living things might disappear. There was 0:18:01.236 --> 0:18:06.356 a strange stillness the birds, for example, where had they gone? 0:18:07.356 --> 0:18:12.196 Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding 0:18:12.276 --> 0:18:16.876 stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen 0:18:17.076 --> 0:18:21.596 anywhere were moribund. They trembled violently and could not fly. 0:18:22.796 --> 0:18:27.636 It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that 0:18:27.716 --> 0:18:35.836 had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, 0:18:35.876 --> 0:18:40.196 and scores of other bird voices. There was now no sound. 0:18:40.956 --> 0:18:47.996 Only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. 0:18:48.076 --> 0:18:50.676 For a long time, Carson called the book men against 0:18:50.716 --> 0:18:53.236 the earth. Then she came up with a new title, 0:18:54.076 --> 0:18:55.836 Silent Spring, was published in The New Yorker in the 0:18:55.836 --> 0:18:58.196 summer of nineteen sixty two, and as a book a 0:18:58.236 --> 0:19:02.636 few months later. Afternoon, I have several announcements to make. 0:19:02.876 --> 0:19:05.556 The President John F. Kennedy was asked about it at 0:19:05.556 --> 0:19:08.556 a press conference. There appears to be growing concern among 0:19:08.636 --> 0:19:13.316 scienas such a possibility of dangerous long range side effects 0:19:13.356 --> 0:19:16.876 from the widespread use of DDT and other pesticides. Have 0:19:16.996 --> 0:19:20.436 you considered asking the Department of Culture or the Public 0:19:20.436 --> 0:19:22.596 Health Service to take a closer look at this? Yes, 0:19:23.236 --> 0:19:26.236 and I know that they already are, I think particularly 0:19:26.236 --> 0:19:30.156 of course, since Miss Carson's book, But they are examining 0:19:30.156 --> 0:19:34.876 the matter. A few books have so wholly changed the world. 0:19:35.356 --> 0:19:38.076 Miss Carson's book led to the passage of the Clean 0:19:38.156 --> 0:19:41.476 Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, the 0:19:41.596 --> 0:19:45.756 Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and it 0:19:45.836 --> 0:19:49.676 helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency. At least for a 0:19:49.716 --> 0:19:54.396 while too, the spring of DDT slowed down. Today, It's 0:19:54.436 --> 0:19:57.436 not just the birds. It's not just DDT. It really 0:19:57.516 --> 0:20:01.236 is man against the Earth. We've poisoned the entire planet 0:20:01.276 --> 0:20:05.756 with carbon emissions. We've changed the very climate, clean water, 0:20:05.876 --> 0:20:09.116 clean air. When it comes to carbon, there is no silence. 0:20:09.356 --> 0:20:12.956 There's a flood of fossil fuel industry pr great, gushing 0:20:12.956 --> 0:20:18.156 gobs of it, like Xon touting its clean gas over 0:20:18.316 --> 0:20:22.156 one million miles to pool that xons advanced clean engine 0:20:22.156 --> 0:20:28.116 formula will keep entire fuel systems running clean and intake vowels. 0:20:32.116 --> 0:20:34.996 When the birds went silent, and Rachel Carson noticed and 0:20:35.036 --> 0:20:40.356 wrote about it, that changed everything. Now we notice everything, 0:20:40.556 --> 0:20:44.916 the species extinctions, the rising temperatures, the melting ice, the 0:20:44.996 --> 0:20:49.996 frightening weather, the floods and fires, the refugees, the spread 0:20:50.036 --> 0:20:54.316 of diseases, the pandemics. We notice, but we don't do 0:20:54.436 --> 0:20:59.876 nearly enough. Why I still think the birds have an answer. 0:21:12.596 --> 0:21:16.316 The Morse code of the yellow bellied sapsucker is less 0:21:16.316 --> 0:21:19.396 regular than the drum of other woodbeckers, and it's call 0:21:19.516 --> 0:21:32.116 note as harsh. I mean, like a collect baseball cards. 0:21:32.156 --> 0:21:37.996 You have dinosaurs, you count birds. You when you started 0:21:38.036 --> 0:21:42.676 counting boods three you're kidding. That's Ken Rosenberg and applied 0:21:42.676 --> 0:21:46.156 conservationist at the Cornell Lab forn Mythology in Ithaca, New York. 0:21:46.596 --> 0:21:49.036 He's lead author of a huge study published in the 0:21:49.116 --> 0:21:53.116 journal Science it demonstrated that close to three billion birds 0:21:53.196 --> 0:21:57.756 have disappeared from the United States and Canada since nineteen seventy. 0:21:58.676 --> 0:22:00.476 My producer Ben and I went to see him at 0:22:00.516 --> 0:22:03.316 Cornell and we went for a walk to listen for 0:22:03.396 --> 0:22:08.036 birds in a sanctuary called sap Sucker Woods. What do 0:22:08.116 --> 0:22:14.236 we sing over there? Cardinal? I felt haunted there by 0:22:14.396 --> 0:22:17.196 Rachel Carson. I don't know that she'd ever been to 0:22:17.236 --> 0:22:19.996 Sapsucker Woods, but it's the place she would have loved. 0:22:21.196 --> 0:22:24.236 While she was writing Sound Spring, she'd been an unbearable 0:22:24.276 --> 0:22:28.476 pain from surgery and radiation. She could barely walk. She'd 0:22:28.476 --> 0:22:31.956 been treated for tumors on her breasts and cancer had spread. 0:22:32.596 --> 0:22:36.636 She'd go on TV wearing a wig. She testified before Congress, 0:22:36.716 --> 0:22:39.356 hiding from everyone that she'd come in on a wheelchair. 0:22:40.716 --> 0:22:44.476 She died in nineteen sixty four, only fifty six years old. 0:22:45.196 --> 0:22:48.436 She had her ashes spread in the sea, her ideas 0:22:48.476 --> 0:22:55.316 spread everywhere, in the flight of every bird. Rachel Carson's. 0:22:55.356 --> 0:22:58.076 One of Rachel Carson's close friends who was Chandler Robbins, 0:22:58.596 --> 0:23:01.156 who worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and 0:23:02.076 --> 0:23:05.796 they would go bird watching together. In response to Rachel's work, 0:23:07.036 --> 0:23:10.356 Chandler Robbins created the Breeding Bird Survey, the North American 0:23:10.396 --> 0:23:13.036 Breeding Survey, and it was just this vision he had 0:23:13.076 --> 0:23:15.796 that Wow, we could count birds everywhere, and it is 0:23:15.836 --> 0:23:19.436 the primary source of all our bird data. That's what 0:23:19.516 --> 0:23:22.996 our whole paper was really based on, was fifty years 0:23:22.996 --> 0:23:26.636 of Breeding Bird Survey data. It's as if Carson is 0:23:26.636 --> 0:23:30.796 one of Rosenberg's co authors. I love that and birds 0:23:30.836 --> 0:23:33.556 are a body of evidence. After the disappearance of the 0:23:33.596 --> 0:23:36.676 passenger pigeon, the Audubon Society had urged people not to 0:23:36.756 --> 0:23:39.116 hunt birds, but to go out and count them, and 0:23:39.196 --> 0:23:41.916 they did. Their lists had just kept piling up count 0:23:41.956 --> 0:23:46.316 after count after count data. Every year. At Christmas, there's 0:23:46.316 --> 0:23:48.876 this thing called the Christmas Bird Count. All over the country. 0:23:49.116 --> 0:23:51.316 People get up in the morning, go meet up in 0:23:51.316 --> 0:23:54.476 assigned spot with other birders, and fan out to count birds. 0:23:55.036 --> 0:23:57.956 It's like the US Census, except not every ten years 0:23:57.956 --> 0:24:01.196 every year, and not done by a government agency, but 0:24:01.316 --> 0:24:05.116 just by regular people. Bird counting is probably the richest 0:24:05.156 --> 0:24:08.156 kind of citizen science ever known. We had a data 0:24:08.196 --> 0:24:13.356 set from nineteen seventy to twenty seventeen, forty eight year 0:24:13.676 --> 0:24:16.476 data set, and that was the primary data set we 0:24:16.556 --> 0:24:21.036 also we also used the Christmas Bird Count, which dates 0:24:21.076 --> 0:24:24.876 back even farther, so we were pretty blown away when 0:24:24.916 --> 0:24:29.996 we ran those numbers and found this net loss of 0:24:30.156 --> 0:24:33.916 three billion birds across five hundred and twenty nine species. 0:24:34.316 --> 0:24:37.316 So that's the big story, is that not only are 0:24:37.356 --> 0:24:40.916 a lot of species declining in their population, but we 0:24:40.956 --> 0:24:46.756 are seeing this tremendous total overall loss of abundance of birds, 0:24:47.236 --> 0:24:52.596 which is what's going to have bigger effects on the ecosystems. 0:24:58.156 --> 0:25:01.636 The abundant red eyed bureos in the tree tops can 0:25:01.716 --> 0:25:05.956 become monotonous and the regularity of their short, robin like phrases. 0:25:07.436 --> 0:25:10.116 I started asking Rosenberg about how they made those recordings 0:25:10.156 --> 0:25:12.516 decades ago, and he said he really didn't know anything 0:25:12.556 --> 0:25:15.756 about them. But then, just at that moment, a guy 0:25:15.836 --> 0:25:18.156 just happened to walk past on this little wooden bridge 0:25:18.196 --> 0:25:20.996 we were on, and Rosenberg called him over. Actually, Leo 0:25:21.116 --> 0:25:24.156 probably narrow spit because he has tourist of the lab. 0:25:24.516 --> 0:25:27.796 Leo Sack, a public program's assistant and librarian as a 0:25:27.876 --> 0:25:35.076 lab I'm not I'm not a historic expert on this. Yes, 0:25:35.996 --> 0:25:38.276 I'm on the visitor center team. I do some tourist 0:25:38.276 --> 0:25:41.716 of the building. So my understanding is that in nineteen 0:25:41.836 --> 0:25:46.556 twenty nine, Fox Movie Tone approached Arthur Allen and said, 0:25:46.556 --> 0:25:49.596 we have a new technology that we're trying out putting 0:25:49.596 --> 0:25:53.636 sound into movies instead of having silent films, and we 0:25:53.716 --> 0:25:57.956 want to show off this new technology using birdsong, and 0:25:58.156 --> 0:26:02.316 can you help us get some recordings of birdsong. Arthur A. 0:26:02.316 --> 0:26:04.596 Allen was the guy who started the lab here. Also 0:26:04.756 --> 0:26:07.396 he is the voice on that old Cornell Birdsong album. 0:26:07.436 --> 0:26:11.436 This is him ros livers and shorter phrases from Canada 0:26:11.636 --> 0:26:15.836 to Florida. In nineteen fifteen, the year after Martha the 0:26:15.876 --> 0:26:19.196 Passenger pigeon died, Professor Allen taped up a sign on 0:26:19.236 --> 0:26:23.436 his office door. It said Laboratory of Warnithology. The door 0:26:23.636 --> 0:26:26.116 was just a door to his office, but he planted 0:26:26.116 --> 0:26:28.476 his flag. I like to think of that lab is 0:26:28.516 --> 0:26:31.836 a little like the last archive. Imagine there's a place 0:26:31.836 --> 0:26:35.116 in our world where the birds go. So when Fox 0:26:35.196 --> 0:26:38.276 Movie Tone came to Arthur Allen about recording birds, of 0:26:38.316 --> 0:26:41.476 course he said yes. And the story is I've heard 0:26:41.516 --> 0:26:44.396 it is that they started out chasing the birds around 0:26:44.396 --> 0:26:47.916 with their big, heavy equipment, and songbirds being songbirds, flew away. 0:26:49.156 --> 0:26:54.156 But Fortunately, doctor Allen was very interested in the behaviors 0:26:54.676 --> 0:26:59.076 of birds, and so could figure out things like where 0:26:59.196 --> 0:27:01.796 was the bird likely to perch on its own and sing? 0:27:01.836 --> 0:27:05.756 And so they set up their equipment, pointed at a 0:27:05.796 --> 0:27:09.476 likely spot, walked away from it, and sure enough, Uh, 0:27:09.636 --> 0:27:14.236 some of the birds came and sang into their microphones. 0:27:14.276 --> 0:27:18.356 Who's excellent? I can't believe you're just that was the 0:27:18.396 --> 0:27:22.116 most fortuitous. I think you swooped down and dropped out 0:27:22.116 --> 0:27:24.916 of the sky may be rarer than catching a songbird. 0:27:25.396 --> 0:27:30.876 The recording device that album American Bird Songs that a 0:27:30.916 --> 0:27:33.756 friend of Carson's had mailed to Roger in nineteen fifty eight, 0:27:34.396 --> 0:27:37.556 Much of it was recorded in these very woods. Here 0:27:37.596 --> 0:27:41.436