Lecture and book signing presented by Kim Todd, author of the award-winning book "Tinkering with Eden," a Natural History of Exotic Species in America.

Starlings. House sparrows. Ring-necked pheasants. These species were deliberately brought to America and set free. Once thought to be harmless whims, these purposeful releases proved to be forerunners of increasingly dangerous ecological invasions. Kim Todd tells the stories of animals imported to North America since the time of European settlement, from the pigeons and honeybees brought with the earliest colonists, to 19th-century introductions of the birds of the poets, and onward to the 21st-century experiments with biological control.  The lecture looks at the past and future of non-native species introductions and discusses the importance of acquiring a sense of biological history. Kim will be available after the lecture to sign copies of her book Tinkering with Eden, available at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island Nature Shop.