124
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #229,035 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★☆☆☆☆
If you like to read about birds maimed for ''research'' purposes
The book presents, in an alternating pattern, wonderful accounts of what birds can do, then descriptions of research performed on those birds. Unfortunately, much of this research is disturbing -- for example, scientists cut the nerve from beak to brain that enables navigation, then released the birds over the ocean. The result was, the author writes breezily, that they wandered out over the ocean and never found their way home. Then she tells another entertaining story, and more research. Ackerman tells many stories of how birds were maimed permanently to collect one small bit of knowledge. Unpleasant picture of what is done to birds in the name of science (or in the name of getting more grant money?).
