"On a Monument to the Pigeon" by Aldo Leopold

To answer Andee’s question about how Aldo Leopold uses different techniques in his “On Monument to the Pigeon” to convince his readers that passenger pigeons are important I think he personifies the passenger pigeon as well as the nature that surrounds it. For example he says, “But a few decades only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.” Sentences like this emphasize his grieving as well as his passion for the pigeons. He also uses words like “thunderous applause” and “kiss of the sun” to explain that we haven’t lost just another bird, we have lost a legendary bird and I think this sits well with the audience and setting of introducing this monument. Another one of Andee’s questions asks how much killing is acceptable even if it is keeping humans alive. I think the answer lies with in Leopold’s text when he talks about how our grandfathers “were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are.” If we have people to remember the passenger pigeon then is it okay that they are extinct to keep people alive? Leopold talks about Darwin’s theory of evolution, but he doesn’t talk about survival of the fittest. Our ancestors were really just trying to survive and so we can’t blame them for that. And we won’t know if someday there will be another type of passenger pigeon that will evolve again. His passion really shows through when he says the passenger pigeon “ was the lightning that played between two biotic poles”, and “the fat of the land”, and “his own zest for living”. This does identify with readers who have ever lost a loved one because readers can feel that he is truly mourning.