"The Sixth Extinction" Chapter 9

In Islands On Dry Land, Kolbert is in Manaus, Brazil where and other scientists are studying animal behavior within the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon had been divided into “islands” each named “Reserve” followed by a certain number since it takes up a tremendous amount of land. When describing Reserve 1202, Kolbert says that “the foliage was so dense that even with the sun directly overhead, the light was still murky, as in a cathedral.” (Kolbert, 176) I found this so ironic because in the previous chapter, I had asked why the Cathedral fire had received more attention that the Amazon Rainforest. Kolbert wrote this book way before the two fires occurred, and it just struck me that she compared the Amazon to the cathedral unknowingly marking two devastating events.

Within the Amazon is the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Program, or BDFFP for short. BDFPP commenced from a controversial agreement between cattlemen and conservationists where the government gave ranchers a stipend for cutting down trees and raising cows (subsidized deforestation). As a result, Tom Lovejoy, an American biologist, hoped to persuade the government and ranchers to allow scientists “decide which trees to cut down and which ones to leave standing…” (Kolbert, 175) This would allow scientists to perform experiments on the impact that climate change has on different parts of the Amazon Rainforest and study behavior amongst species.

When going to different areas of Reserve 1202, Kolbert traveled with an American ornithologist named Mario Cohn-Haft, who is devoted to birds. He believes that there is a greater number of bird species than the calculated amount since birds with different calls tend to be genetically distinct. Cohn-Haft hoped to show Kolbert a vast number of birds, so “when he heard a bird he couldn’t locate, he would play its song in the hope that it would reveal itself.” (Kolbert, 178) This reminded me of the time when I visited the labs found in Rockefeller University because it consisted of zebra finches that were being used to evaluate the interaction between different genders. These birds had not been exposed to the opposite gender for a long period of time and when a Graduate student named Caitlin moved a female to a male cage, one of the males started to sing beautifully. Because of the lack of exposure, the male was happy to see a female likely for mating purposes. Unsurprisingly, the chapter would also detail the impact that human activity has had on the Amazon Rainforest (farming and deforestation) and how this would cause bird, insect, and other species populations to decrease dramatically.