The Extinct Birds Project started in 2015 after seeing a drawer full of extinct birds at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. On the clean white paper were the bodies of seven extinct birds and around a dozen other threatened species. A tremendous veil of sadness laced every one of the specimens and countless questions immediately ran through my mind: How did the institution get these extinct birds? Why did they go extinct? Should they have been collected if they went extinct? Where were these birds collected? Have the bodies been gutted and filled with cotton? How do they do that? Who and how were these specimens collected? What were the collectors' lives like?This book with its accompanying exhibition and website (www.extinctbirdsproject.com) tries to answer these questions and several others about seventeen extinct birds species. The publication examines at least one of the specimens from each of these species and the ornithologist who collected them. The essays and illustrations presents complicated global environmental and societal issues in an accessible and interesting manner.