ABSTRACT
In October 2016, a World Wildlife Fund report warned that about two-thirds of the planet's wildlife could disappear by 2020. Species extinction has always been of interest to various publics, but in the twenty-first century, the impacts of people on extinctions are unprecedented. Views about animals, environmental attitudes, and perceptions about nature's value can explain how humans treat nonhuman species and how they approach conservation efforts. Media representations of animals, extinction, and conservation in opinion pieces are important because that form is less constrained by journalistic norms and routines than news articles and has a stronger potential impact on public policy. To understand social attitudes toward extinction, this chapter focuses on an iconic species: the passenger pigeon, which went extinct in 1914. Passenger pigeons once covered the skies of the Great Lakes Basin and elsewhere in North America, with historical accounts suggesting their population was in the billions.
