Black-crowned night heron
on Santa Fe Lake Florida State Archives/Florida Memory
By Jane Feehan
In the late 19th century, the plume trade in the U.S. and Europe grew at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Florida birds. Their feathers, used to adorn women’s hats, were worth about 75 cents apiece in New York. The American egret and the snowy egret were targeted, along with other wading birds, in rookeries (breeding places) just south of Okeechobee in the Everglades.
Hunters came into the swampy area and clubbed and scalped birds by night. The young offspring of Everglades birds were orphaned and starved to death or fell prey to other animals. The Florida legislature passed a law prohibiting the slaughter in 1877, but it was ignored. In just four years all rookeries south of Okeechobee were destroyed.
In the late 19th century, the plume trade in the U.S. and Europe grew at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Florida birds. Their feathers, used to adorn women’s hats, were worth about 75 cents apiece in New York. The American egret and the snowy egret were targeted, along with other wading birds, in rookeries (breeding places) just south of Okeechobee in the Everglades.
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In protest, people against the decimation of birds for their feathers established Audubon societies across the nation in the 1890s, launching what was probably the first modern American conservation movement.
For more on the founding of the Audubon Society see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/
Copyright © 2010, 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
Copyright © 2010, 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Everglades, River of Grass. Banyan Books,1978.
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Tags: Florida birds, Florida bird slaughter, Florida history, Everglades