Lunch and Learn program springs back

Jim Anderson opened COCC’s spring Lunch and Learn series last Wednesday, April 6, at Sisters Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration meeting room.

Mainly discussing passenger pigeons, Anderson also wove in extinction (see this week’s column, page 32), magnetism, polar shifting, volcanoes, and other birds with his delighted audience.

“At one time the passenger pigeon had the highest population on earth, about 5 billion,” Anderson said. “They ... blotted out the sun during their migrations...

“Market hunters killed them off for restaurants.”

He noted that, “It would be interesting to search areas in Cuba for any possible remaining passenger pigeons that may have survived.”

Another bird Anderson mentioned was the Dodo bird, eaten to extinction by Portuguese sailors by 1681.

On more positive grounds, Anderson cited the successes of the American bald eagle and California condor and their comebacks from the brink of extinction.

“The bald eagle is a sensitive species and probably needs a nesting area with no activity for about one-half mile around according to Frank Issacs, who started studying these magnificent birds in 1973,” he said. “At that time there were 40 active nests for bald eagles. Today, there are 402.”

The California condor also has come back with programs at the Los Angeles, Portland, and San Diego zoos raising young and releasing them into natural habitats.

“These large birds are a sight to behold in the wild,” said Anderson.

“Over the course of earth history there have been billions of animals and plants,” Anderson said. “This is a unique planet and a changing planet. Polar shifts have occurred 170 times. Presently, we are seeing slow drifting from the North and South poles underway. In the Sisters area we are seeing changes in our local volcanoes.”

Jean Nave, host of the Lunch and Learn series, asked Anderson about the possibility of obtaining DNA from extinct Passenger Pigeons and “bringing them back.”

Anderson noted that Michael Crichton had written about this sort of thing in his book “Jurassic Park.”