'How baking soda helped save our birds' virtual program Jan. 6
Join the University of Tennessee Arboretum Society for its First Thursday Nature Supper Club at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 6, to learn how baking soda once helped save the bird population.
It's the First Thursday Supper Club of the New Year via Zoom, according to a UT Arboretum Society news release.
"You provide your own stay-at-home supper, and we provide the nature as local naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales will entertain and teach us via Zoom about this incredible story," the release stated.
There was a time in the late 1800s when birds were under an all-out assault. They were shot to eat, shot for their feathers and simply shot for target practice. Few people knew all the different species they were shooting or realized they were party to bringing several species to the brink of extinction. A grassroots moment to raise awareness was started by conservationist Charles Church of the Church & Dwight Company when he began to insert “Useful Birds of America” trading cards into boxes of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, one of their products. Under the slogan “For the Good of All, Do Not Destroy the Birds” the general public, especially children, began to learn about the birds that lived around them. Over the next century, hundreds of different small cards were produced and given away to avid collectors, according to a release.
Join Michelle Campanis, education coordinator at UT Arboretum, and Bales for a look at the movement and learn more about some of the bird species on these beautiful bird cards.
Register for this free Zoom Program at www.utarboretumsociety.org. This program will be recorded, and closed captioning is available. Contact Campanis at mcampani@utk.edu with any questions or registration issues.
To contact Bales or buy one of his UT Press books, email him at hellostephenlyn@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: 'How baking soda helped save our birds' virtual program Jan. 6
