Fading Song confronts the ecological degradation and species loss caused by European colonization of California’s landscapes.

Once one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, California has been deeply changed by overgrazing from imported livestock, competition with invasive plants, drought, large-scale tree removal, and fire suppression. Invasive species have severely damaged ecosystem health, decreasing biodiversity, displacing native plants and animals, and pushing endangered species toward extinction. The introduction of sheep, in particular, caused severe topsoil erosion, leaving lasting scars on the Sierra Nevada foothills. The composition memorializes species that have been displaced or diminished in these altered habitats. A porcupine stands at the entrance of its burrow, now rare where it once thrived. A juvenile grizzly bear skull rests buried beneath layers of eroded soil. Declining populations of limestone and Mount Lyell salamanders climb among rare, unfolding wildflowers. A Sierra garter snake stalks the critically endangered mountain yellow-legged frog, once the most common frog in the Sierra Nevada. Grasshopper sparrows, horned larks, and loggerhead shrikes flit near the roots of a cut tree. At the top, a lamb perches on a cut trunk, listening to the fading song of the willow flycatcher—a quiet elegy for what has been lost.