Field Notes: Bird Law

The first behind-the-scenes look at the great sources that don’t quite make it into my newsletter.

Bird Law

In my last piece, about about the sportsmen who lobbied the country’s earliest conservation laws into existence, I mentioned it was a shame that so many of the tidbits, tangents, and delightful but not-quite-on-topic quotes that turned up in my research never saw the light of day. So with this email, I’m going to start experimenting with sending these nuggets out to paid subscribers. I’ll call this series Field Notes, and as the title suggests, the narrative won’t be quite as strong as with my regular posts. Instead, I’ll opt more for clippings from primary sources, stand-alone quotes, and interesting snippets that got cut for time.

Since this is an experiment, I’m eager for your feedback! Do you find this information interesting? Is there something else you’d like to see? Please let me know!

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From its inaugural convention in 1859, the New York State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game had two purposes for its annual meetings. The first was “discussing and devising means for united action throughout the State for a revision of the present senseless and inefficient Game and Fish Laws.” The second was to dispatch hundreds, then thousands of passenger pigeons in trap-shooting contests (I wrote another post about these trap shooting contests last year). It did not take long for the latter purpose to overshadow the former. The number of pigeons killed in its annual sporting competition grew from a few hundred in 1859 to 5,600 in 1870.¹

At their 1881 convention, held at Coney Island, New York sportsmen slaughtered 20,000 pigeons, a spectacle that immediately caused an outpouring of criticism against the hunters. I finished the Bird Law piece by talking about accusations of hypocrisy that some sportsmen levied against sporting organizations. But following the massacre at Coney Island, the criticism became especially pointed. Page after page of the sporting periodical Forest and Stream was filled with letters to the editor assailing the so-called sport of trap shooting, and I’ve collected some of the sharper quotes.

Forest and Stream letter to the editor, October 20 1881: