At the heart of this book by Nobel Prize-winning immunologist and professor Peter Doherty is this striking observation: Birds detect danger to our health and the environment before we do. Following a diverse cast of bird species around the world-from tufted puffins in Puget Sound to griffon vultures in India, pigeons in East Asia, and wedge-tailed shearwaters off the islands of Australia's Great Barrier Reef-Doherty illuminates birds' role as an early warning system for threats to the health of our planet and our own well-being.

Their Fate Is Our Fate is an impassioned call not only to attention but to action. As "citizen scientists" we can collect data, vital to cutting-edge research, that depends on the birds that are all around us. Armed with our observations, scientists will continue to uncover new ways to glimpse our future in birds-and to affirm how, truly, their fate is our fate.