"The Lost Bird Project" is a compelling and touching documentary about the efforts of sculptor Todd McGrain's efforts to place his memorials of five extinct birds in the places where they were last seen in the wild in North America. These bronze statues are over six-feet tall, colored black, and metal-poured from a Newburgh, NY foundry. Although we do not learn much about McGrain, he appears to be very sincere and decent in his mission. He is certainly low-key and rational, and places no blame for extinction on any particular person. His inspiration emanates from the book, "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers" by Christopher Cokinos, who wrote about extinct birds.
One of the bygone birds is the heath hen (extinct, 1932), of which there was only one in 1928. An island celebrity of sorts, he spent his last years booming out his mating call on Martha's Vineyard, a haunting image, as there was no longer any mate for him in the world! The other birds are the Carolina parakeet (extinct, 1918), the Labrador duck (extinct, 1878), the great auk (extinct in 1844, not 1888 as the movie testifies), and the passenger pigeon (extinct, 1914).
The demise of the passenger pigeon, the most abundant bird species on earth, was especially callous. It numbered perhaps three to five billion birds in 1800, but was reportedly reduced to one in the wild in 1900, when it was shot by a farm boy in Pike County, Ohio. The last passenger pigeon in captivity died in a Cincinnati zoo in 1914. These migrating birds were once so numerous that they darkened the sky for two or three days as they flew overhead. But hunting and man's destruction of its habitat doomed them. Coveted mostly for their meat and secondarily for their feathers, they were regularly shot at as they flew overhead. They were also trapped by many methods. One of these was the "stool pigeon" decoy. A pigeon was tied to an object, like a stool. When it flapped its wings, it would attract flying birds, which were ambushed as they flew below to investigate. The slaughter was especially appalling at their nesting sites: fully one billion passenger pigeons were said to have been destroyed at Petoskey, Michigan in 1878. The shootings were unremitting until the end.
Not covered in the movie is that final act in the destruction of the great auk in 1844 on Eldey Island. The last male and female pair was attacked and strangled by three men from Iceland. The couple's incubated egg was stepped on and crushed by a man's boot.
Eventually McGrain is successful in his project. For instance, in front of the local population on rocky Fogo Island off Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, we see McGrain's dedication of the installation of the great auk memorial, secured in place with four large bolts and epoxy.
As I sadly write this review I note that the Eskimo curlew, which flies from the northern tip of North America to the southern tip of South America, may be extinct as it has hardly been seen in this century.
