THE PLUME WARS

After the Civil War, the pace of settlement in Florida accelerated due to provisions of the Homestead Act and improvements in boat and rail transportation. It was not the mass migration of settlers that threatened Florida’s wildlife but an aggressive, pioneering spirit determined to wrest a living from the land. In due course, these early settlers discovered the bird rookeries at a time when the millinery trade had driven up the price of feathers to more than twice their weight in gold. Plume hunters armed with clubs and guns plundered the rookeries and slaughtered thousands of birds in a single night. By the end of the century, the great bird populations of Florida were hunted to the verge of extinction, and the last remaining rookery on the East Coast was Pelican Island.

The Homestead Act brought Paul Kroegel and his father to Florida in 1881. They staked their claim along the west bank of the Indian River Lagoon just opposite Pelican Island. From his homestead perched high upon an ancient Indian shell mound, Paul Kroegel observed the thousands of water birds flying to and from the rookery. He witnessed the boatloads of tourists using birds for target practice, the oölogists who ransacked the island for collectable eggs, and the nighttime raids by plume hunters. With a boat and a gun as his only mandate, Paul Kroegel guarded the island’s inhabitants from poachers and vandals.

Over the years, influential naturalists visited the Kroegel homestead including Frank Chapman, bird curator of the American Museum of Natural History, and William Dutcher, President of the American Audubon Society. Chapman and Dutcher learned about the plight of the birds from Kroegel and brought the grim reports to Theodore Roosevelt, our first conservationist President.

In response to the lobbying efforts of Chapman, Dutcher and others, President Roosevelt signed an executive order on March 14, 1903 establishing Pelican Island as a federal bird preserve. Roosevelt created 55 additional sanctuaries during two terms in office. These became the beginnings of our national wildlife refuge system, which now comprises 540 reservations protecting 94 million acres. For his role, Paul Kroegel became our first National Wildlife Refuge Manager earning a dollar a month and a place in history.

Eventually, federal legislation banned the sale and possession of exotic bird plumes thus ending the feather trade. Yet other threats remained. In 1918, hundreds of pelican chicks were clubbed to death because commercial fisherman believed that pelicans were competing for dwindling fish supplies. The Florida Audubon Society ended the controversy by demonstrating that pelican diets were comprised of not-for-consumption baitfish, thus posing no threat to the livelihoods of commercial fisherman. Even today, simple misconceptions and prejudices about wildlife are major obstacles to conservation, and educational outreach programs remain our best defense.

(Hint: Educational outreach includes blogs like “EcoPhotos” that bring this message to blogging community. So spread the word. Thanks, everyone.)