Paradise Tananger
Drawing by Barry Kent MacKay

Poets, artists, neurobiologists, philosophers, and others have long pondered, what constitutes beauty. Whatever it is, it is impossible, I think, to hear the liquid notes of the voice of a certain tropical songbird and not be charmed. I speak of the endangered straw-headed bulbul, native to the green forests of parts of southeast Asia, where it has become divided into a series of isolated subpopulations, each quite small. The entire wild population is estimated to be no more than about 2,500 birds, and possibly less than half that number. The male and female sing in charming duets, as can be heard, and seen, here.

Last week, we joined with a group of animal protection organizations to propose to the U.S. government that the straw-headed bulbul, named for stiff…