Invasive Deer about to bring Nightingale to Extinction (Video of singing Nightingale Included)

[jack]

Yes, it is a British bird, but as a Lit Major, I found it to be particularly disturbing news that the Nightingale is well on its way to extinction.

The culprit is an invasive deer species from Asia that eats its habitat and preferred nesting places:

"The muntjac is a small deer which is native to much of Asia, including Sri Lanka, India, China and Japan and was introduced to the UK by accident when some escaped from the Duke of Bedfordshire's estate in 1925...
Without any natural predator, numbers have rocketed and the species is now found widely in England and could even have made its way to Scotland."

Efforts, of course, are being made to check it's imminent loss:

"The trust has launched the Nightingale Appeal and a CD of the bird singing, profits from which will fund research.
The CD features archive recording of nightingales singing to the backdrop of Second World War bombers over southern England, and the celebrated cellist Beatrice Harrison accompanied by a singing nightingale – the first recording ever of a wild bird or animal not in captivity."

Nightingale heading to extinction - Telegraph

Famous in much of English Poetry, it's greatest moment in literature is known well:

JULIET
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.