The Birds That Were Almost Hats

Look out at those gorgeous white egrets and pink spoonbills on the flats, and let me tell you a hard, true story about them — because a little over a hundred years ago, these very birds were being wiped off the face of the earth, and for the most ridiculous reason imaginable: to decorate hats.

Go back to the late eighteen-hundreds. It was the great age of the fancy ladies' hat, and the height of fashion was to pile them with feathers — great sprays of delicate white plumes, whole stuffed birds, even. And the most coveted plumes of all were the fine, wispy breeding feathers that egrets and herons grow on their backs in nesting season. Those feathers, ounce for ounce, became worth more than gold. And so an army of plume hunters descended on the rookeries of Florida — these very coasts and swamps — and slaughtered the birds by the millions. And here's the cruelest part: the plumes were only there in nesting season, so the hunters shot the parent birds right off their nests, and left the eggs and the helpless chicks to die of hunger and exposure by the thousands. Whole vast rookeries that had roared with life were shot silent and empty. The snowy egret, the great egret, and the roseate spoonbill were driven to the very brink of vanishing forever.

But some people said: enough. Outraged women refused to wear the feathers and started bird-protection societies — that's the root of the Audubon movement you know today. They hired wardens to guard the last rookeries with guns — and one of those brave wardens, a young man named Guy Bradley, was shot dead by a plume hunter he was trying to stop, a martyr for the birds. The outrage over killings like his finally moved the country: the first real wildlife protection laws were passed, the feather trade was outlawed, and the nation began setting aside its very first wildlife refuges — safe places where the birds could nest in peace. Sanctuaries. Exactly like the one you're driving through right now.

And slowly, over the long years, the birds came back. Not all the way, not everywhere — but back. That flock of egrets out there, that flash of spoonbill pink — those are the great-great-grandchildren of survivors, of the handful that made it through the slaughter because a few people fought for them. So this refuge isn't just a pretty drive. It's a promise being kept, to birds we very nearly lost forever. Look at that pink spoonbill a good long while, friend. We almost never got to see one again. Roll on.