The sad history of the Hawaiian crow

Over a 40-year career, Sophie Osborn has evolved from a greenhorn volunteer for nature, doing mundane tasks in the wilds of Wyoming, to the manager of a captive-release programme for California condors in Arizona. This post placed her at the heart of perhaps the most sophisticated operation for a threatened bird anywhere in the world. Yet Osborn was as passionate in her first role as in her later one.

She describes her professional arc in Feather Trails, using three bird species as separate motifs to order her story as a play in three acts. The structure not only offers a way of organising an autobiography; it supplies a sequence of lenses through which to explore the challenges faced by all those acting for birds. The book is thus a personal tale and a meticulously researched environmental history of modern America.

The trio – the peregrine, the Hawaiian crow and the California condor – are united in their need for rehabilitation. But in some ways they could not be more different. The peregrine has been restored, by intervention, to its place as one of the most successful raptors in the world, spread across six continents, thriving equally in the heart of mega-cities and the Arctic tundra. The Hawaiian crow, however, is extinct in the wild; it was never found anywhere but in cloud forest above 1,000 metres and only on one island in its native archipelago.

The order of the birds turns the book into a story with a grim message but one that is bookended with hope. To bring out the darkness of her middle section, Osborn explains how Hawaii, with higher levels of endemism than any other island chain, is one of the world’s great evolutionary laboratories. The arrival of one species unleashed unimaginable devastation.