Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE OSTRICHES

Ostrich Distribution

At the present time the Ostrich appears to be confined to certain of the desert portions of Africa as well as similar areas in Arabia and southern Palestine, but there is abundant evidence to show that within historic times it enjoyed a far more extensive range which included portions of Syria, Mesopotamia, eastern Persia, and perhaps Baluchistan, and in recent geologic time (Pliocene) it enjoyed a still wider distribution, since fossil remains of Ostriches, or at least of certain large two-toed birds very near of kin to them, or their eggs, have been found in the Sivalik Hills in India, the Province of Cherson in southeastern Russia, northern China, the island of Samos, etc. The presence of a large Ostrich-like bird in western North America has also been reported by Cope, but this determination rests on a single fragmentary bone, and is thought by later paleontologists to be open to grave question.

There can be no doubt, however, that the range of the Ostrich has been undergoing a contraction for a very long period of time, and unfortunately this process seems to be going on at the present day, for countries where it was once reasonably abundant now know it no more or but rarely. The main stronghold is of course the Dark Continent, and there it will undoubtedly linger for a long time, but as this vast area comes gradually under the dominion of at least semi-civilization, the Ostrich must of necessity give way.

However, there is probably no danger of its disappearing utterly, at least so long as the votaries of fashion call for its plumes, for, as will be recounted later, it is now extensively”farmed."

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