Birds of Pandemonium cover art

Birds of Pandemonium

Life Among the Exotic and the Endangered

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Birds of Pandemonium

By: Michele Raffin
Narrated by: Tamara Marston
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About this listen

Eighteen years ago, Stanford MBA Michele Raffin pulled off the road to help an injured dove, a momentary impulse that ignited in her a fervent commitment to saving vulnerable bird species. Today, her suburban home plays host to Pandemonium Aviaries, one of the largest avian rescue sanctuaries and endangered breeding facilities in the country, with a maze of 54 individual aviaries that house over 40 species, 14 of which are listed as threatened with extinction. Since its founding, Pandemonium has been savior to over 1,000 birds from 89 species.

The Birds of Pandemonium blends the remarkable tale of Raffin's transformation from MBA/soccer mom to certified aviculturist with the stories of her amazing feathered charges, movingly revealing their unique personalities and complex social systems as they fall in love, mourn, sacrifice, and celebrate. Ultimately, The Birds of Pandemonium tells of one woman's crusade to save precious lives, bird by bird, providing a rare insight into how rescuing others, regardless of species, can lead to true happiness.

©2014 Michele Raffin. Recorded by arrangement with Solow Literary Enterprises, Inc. (P)2014 2014 HighBridge Company Animals Biological Sciences Endangered Species Environment Environmentalists & Naturalists Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Professionals & Academics Science Endangered Animals
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Lovely narration and a wonderful story about how one bird led to a growth of a non profit organisation.

Heartwarming

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The book gives the false impression that solving endangered bird problems are a matter of breeding them in captivity. There is no mention of their behavior in the wild or their natural environment. As an animal lover, I was hoping to learn something about birds, but what I mostly got was a story about her and plethora of pet bird behaviors.

The author truly loves birds but seems to see them mostly as a pet. I appreciate when she writes about all the ways people are harming their pet birds and the physically and emotionally damaged birds abandoned at shelters, but she has no problem allowing her parrot to accompany her son outdoors and interact with strangers, potentially causing people to acquire a pet parrot to wind up later at a shelter. She lies to her kids that the escaped birds are thriving in the wild, a tragic result of an aviary workman expressing the same sentiment and freeing the domesticated birds, unlikely to survive the wild especially during winter. She talks about the birds' ability to love and grieve and their intelligence, but says one parrot was not smart because it refused to play the puzzle her way (it did later, dropping the piece into corresponding slot). She also acquires an exotic bird through a questionable pet breeder to keep her other bird company, perpetuating the problem. While I appreciate her devotion to rescuing and caring for birds, the aviculture industry she is a part of is the problem. Surely a bird born to fly should not be tamed in cages for our amusement.

Author thinks birds are pets

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.