Fifteen years ago, sculptor Todd McGrain began to build …

Fifteen years ago, sculptor Todd McGrain began to build bronze memorials for five extinct species of birds-the great auk, Carolina parakeet, heath hen, passenger pigeon, and Labrador duck-and install them near the place where each species’ last member vanished from the earth. The publication of THE LOST BIRD PROJECT, a book that contains photographs from the memorial-making process along with mini-biographies of its winged subjects, marks the successful end of this remarkable and moving undertaking. Despite the fact that no one today has seen them alive, it’s possible, as McGrain has proven, to preserve the sculptural memory of these birds-the loss of which might be extinction’s greatest tragedy.