This is going to be a ranting, rambling review full of animal liberationist opinions as it's impossible for it not to be with how many feelings, some old and some new, were awakened by this beautiful book. The author and I have many agreements and a few disagreements, so be careful not to project all of my opinions onto her writing if I happen to convey this jumbled mess without enough organization. Sophie A. H. Osborn's Feather Trails is a standout in the genres it spans (memoir, nature writing, science, and more.) The writing is excellent, engrossing, and drew me in completely, making me feel like I was there. Her ability to immerse the reader with details about locations, visuals, feelings, experiences, etc is strengthened by her simultaneous ponderings on what things are like for the individual birds of the species she worked to support and conserve. Her passion about birds and conservation is clear and reading this book added to my own passion and understanding.
Learning Osborn's history with peregrine falcons had me thinking of every time I have had the luxury of seeing this no longer endangered bird with the awe of knowing they may never have had a chance without people like her and the challenging work they did. The stories of the alala crows tore at and touched my heart. You can tell from my name that I have a soft spot for corvids and to know these crafty creatures are extinct in the wild is devastating. Learning how the remaining individuals in captivity still maintain some wildness and ability to enjoy life makes the reality easier to digest. The section on the California condors was by far the hardest, yet still full of beauty. The pitfalls and absolute cruelty and callousness of so many humans, how they killed so many birds, and damaged conservation efforts over and over has infuriated and haunted me since.
Frankly, I already found the propaganda of hunters all being the "greatest conservationists" to be gross. Taking a history where regulations had to be created and rigidly enforced because hunting drove many species to, or close to, extinction (including deer, canada geese, and other now abundant species,) then rebranding the entire story with hunters as the heroes is dishonest at best. (Not to mention how current subsets of conservation that are partly funded by hunting licenses end abruptly when their ability to kill who they want when they want, or the profits of loggers and ranchers, are affected.) After Osborn telling the stories of lead poisonings, individual condor by condor, all dying extremely prematurely, while the NRA and "conservationist" hunters clung (and still cling) to lead shot because "gun rights" frankly made me so infuriated by this hunting propaganda that I could barely breathe. For the record, Osborn herself does not claim to be anti-hunting, just anti-lead ammunition. Osborn's stories of individual birds, their relationships, explorations and adventures, and the short lives they did get to lead made out for a book that is not purely trauma. However, it is never easy to read sensitive, thoughtful, honest accounts of how we got here, where we have succeeded, and where we have failed. That honesty leads me to my next point.
I often go in to books about the greater than human world open-minded but with low expectations. There are tons of books out there that disappoint, not so much in their lack of research and information, but in their objectification of their subjects. I am so tired of reading books that treat birds and other animals as a monolith of beings with no personalities and only a single minded focus (usually reproduction.) I did not know much about Osborn before this book (because I am out of touch, she is in fact a rather large name in ornithology and conservation.) I was pleasantly surprised by how she told these stories for a variety of reasons.
Despite sometimes falling into the dreaded "it" designation that many humans continue to give animals, Osborn focuses on each bird that she worked with and knew as an individual being. We learn about their personalities, how they interact with one another in different ways, how human interference affects things, and so on. She also does not shy away from the ethical conundrums of working with endangered birds. While I don't always agree with her, I found so much value in her discussion of the realities of how righting human wrongs can be very complicated. From DDT and lead contamination to the introduction of feral cats and killing birds to feed other birds, Osborn does not shy away from discussing her feelings and overall ethics (topics often woefully absent in science literature.) She discusses her uneasiness with the practice of killing quail to save falcons and how seeing a feral cat be killed to protect other species taught her to transition her own cats to be indoor only. I did not notice her analyzing the killing of cows for condors, though, which I think could have pushed the ethical convo further when discussing animal agribusiness and its contributions to climate change and species extinction- especially given the focus on hunting (which presently has less overall impact than animal exploitation agribusiness.) Not only do the wastefulness, greenhouse gases, land use, groundwater pollution, etc, cause issues, but many vulture species have become endangered due to poisoning from drugs given to cows, but I digress.
She discusses the human fault for introducing non native species in much more honest ways than many scientists, though in my opinion she still put too much blame on said species at times for endangering other animals by condoning their slaughter. The big picture is more complicated than that. In reality, humans (aside from introducing said species in the first place) have far worse impacts than any feral cat. Overfishing/hunting, habitat destruction, pollutions, animal agribusiness, etc are all massive threats to birds and other animals. Even the first humans who traveled outside Africa to colonize other continents began to cause imbalances, extinctions, etc upon arrival (no shade to folks just trying to survive without this knowledge centuries ago.) With European colonization, industrialization, etc, those problems were intensely magnified. Yet, humans believe that we and our luxuries are worth more, so we call the other animals "invaders" and blame it all on them. Osborn is unafraid to have this discussion which I truly appreciate, even if she and I disagree on a fraction of the solutions.
Osborn also is willing to acknowledge the ethical conundrums in terms of conservation, study, and breeding of endangered species. She does not shy away from the reality that handling birds is stressful. I have seen bird banding posts with people taking selfies with terrified animals or claiming they're "smilin for the camera!" (I support banding research efforts, for the record, and respect the efforts of scientists to reduce stress as much as possible. Unfortunately, nonconsensual contact with other animals is sometimes needed for conservation and research. I also support questioning everything we do without another animal's consent and how we characterize those actions.) Osborn discusses the practice of separating animals who choose one another as partners in order to place them with another animal with a higher chance of breeding. This is a practice I oppose, but I see the logic. She does not discuss artificial insemination as much as one should as it ranges from stressful to horrific depending on the species. I think zoos playing a part increases the problem (reminder: wherein the majority of animals are not endangered and are bred/purchased just for entertainment/profit.) Zoos tend to want to breed species so that they have more of that species to display in captivity, despite the fact that the stresses of the zoo tend to hinder various species interest in breeding. You can see the difference between zoo-run conservation and other types not driven by profit in this book and elsewhere. Even so, the Alala crow efforts are important and sometimes a zoo will hold the only members of an endangered or extinct-in-the-wild species available and thus one must work with them in order to participate.
In terms of herself, Osborn is excellent at describing her strengths, shortcomings, successes, and mistakes along the way. She discusses being a woman in the sciences and which people were her allies vs which ones treated her as subservient. She interrogates her own biases and examines her feelings. Rather than drawing conclusions that all emotion is bad in science, she examines which way her emotions may lead her and why. I don't know if she realized she was using this sort of wisdom around feelings or if it is just evident to me as an outsider. Afterall, isn't the desire to care for and conserve an entire species partly an emotional one? Humans are an extremely emotional species, much like many other animals. I think we benefit far more from these discussions than we do from humans who think that emotion has no place in the sciences (as if that would even be possible with us involved.) But, again, I digress.
I've written plenty and have filled this review with so much of what this book brought up for me because I haven't been able to stop thinking about it every day since I finished. I hope that Osborn's style is a trend in writing that will continue in science, conservation, nature, etc topics. It not only draws people into the worlds of other animals, but it pushes us more towards possible solutions. The planet would not have lost so many of its species with more efforts like that of Osborn. With her and those like her still out there, maybe many still have a chance.
This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.
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