Book Review: The Feather Thief - Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

The other day, I received a text from a coworker on one of my days off.  She was cleaning our American flamingo exhibit when a guest approached the railing and asked if he could have a few feathers that were lying around the yard.  She excused herself for a moment, then nipped around the corner to text me on whether or not it was allowed.  I told her that flamingo feathers were fine, but it was illegal to distribute the feathers of some of our other species, such as the bald eagles.

I should have told her to keep an eye on that guy later.  These feather people can be weird.

As "Exhibit A" in that case, I present The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson.  Johnson recounts the story of Edwin Rist, a young American who became enraptured with the pastime of... ornamental fly tying.  As in, for fly fishing, only never to actually be used in fishing, because man, these things are priceless and intricate and you just don't throw something like that in the water to get swallowed by a fish, apparently.  Speaking of "apparently", apparently the best fishing flies are made from the combined plumage of several exotic bird species, many of which are threatened with extinction.  To secure feathers, both for his own use and to sell, Rist broke into the British Museum of Natural History, and looted the vaults of birds-of-paradise, cotingas, and other specimens.  Some of them dated back nearly two-hundred years and were collected by Darwin's collaborator, Alfred Russell Wallace himself.

It's worth nothing that, prior to escalating to these James-Bondesque stunts, Edwin Rist would write to zoos that housed birds that he admired, asking for moulted feathers.

Let's not beat around the bush.  People like Rist are weird, and a major part of Johnson's book's attraction is the chance to gawk and poke fun at how weird these hard-core fly fanatics are... and that would have been an enjoyable enough book.  What makes the book special, however, is all of the diving into the details and backstory the author goes.  Johnson describes the biological and historical stories behind these stolen birds, detailing how some of them were used to solve the mystery of evolution.  He tells the stories of bird collectors and private zoos (especially that of Lord Walter Rothschild, who irked his rich father by having cassowaries and bears delivered to their mansion doorstep) and the unexpectedly fascinating history of fly tying.  He does some of his best work describing CITES and how it regulates the trade in endangered species... thereby making birds-of-paradise, fruit crows, and other species of interest hard to acquire... and therefore valuable.

Obsession is a fascinating thing to behold, especially when it takes a form that you wouldn't normally expect.  Still, as strange as I find his case (which I'm taking pains not to spoil), I have to cut the wayward Mr. Rist a little bit of slack.  Some birds are worth obsessing over... though maybe not to the extent that some people are willing to go...

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century on Amazon.com