In the book Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson argues that animals shouldn't be killed simply because they're a niucience to people. Poisons, such as parathion, are being used to exterminate "pests" in ecosystems, which creates dangers towards humans, domestic animals and wildlife.

In the first third of the selection, Carson gives an example of farmers killing blackbirds with poison, when they simply could have switched to species of corn with deep-set ears, to ensure the welfare of their crops. The poison was sent in planes on a "mission of death." This brutal, but exceptionally accurate, description of the plane provides the reader with a representation aimed to cause sympathy towards the birds that were merely trying to survive.

In