Feather Wars: Inside the Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds (Ep 753)

The history of bird conservation is full of conflict, characters, chaos — and ultimately, hope.

In this special episode, host Dr. Mike Brasher sits down with journalist and author James H. McCommons, whose new book Feather Wars uncovers the dramatic, surprising, and often untold stories behind how America saved its birds from the brink of extinction.

From market hunting and plume traders to poetic bird lovers, political maneuvering, and early wildlife heroes, this book chronicles the people, laws, and events that shaped modern conservation — including stories waterfowl hunters will instantly recognize.

In this episode:

• The early days of shotgun ornithologists and egg collectors
• How plume hunting and the feather trade ignited a national movement
• Why hunters played a crucial role in securing early conservation laws
• The real story behind the Lacey Act, Weeks-McLean Act, and MBTA
• The wild saga of Ray Holland vs. the Missouri Attorney General
• Ding Darling, duck clubs, and the birth of the Federal Duck Stamp
• How past conservation battles mirror today’s challenges

If you love birds, hunting history, conservation law, or simply great storytelling — this episode (and this book) are must-listens.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mike Brasher

DUPodcast Science Host

What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?

Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.

Mike Brasher: 01:49

Hey, everyone. Join us on today's episode as we sit down with James H McCommons, author of the Feather Wars and the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds, a brand new book that chronicles the history of migratory bird conservation in America. You'll hear all sorts of cool stories of how hunters and others have played a pivotal role in what we know of today's modern bird conservation world. Stay with us, folks, as we visit with James and learn more about this exciting story.

VO: 02:19

Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.

VO: 02:37

Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.

VO: 03:03

Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.

Mike Brasher: 03:26

Everyone, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm gonna be your host today, doctor Mike Brazier, and and I'm really excited about this episode because it's something a little bit different from what we normally do. We're gonna be speaking with James h McCormons, an author and journalist who has a brand new book out called the feather wars and the great crusade to save America's birds. I have been fortunate to receive an advanced copy of it to prepare for this recording, and it is a fantastic read on the history of bird conservation, in America, essentially chronicling the story and the campaign to save America's birds. Many of you will have heard it at a high level about some of the stories.

Mike Brasher: 04:10

This book goes into a great level of detail, a lot of fascinating stories, and we're here to talk with the guy that wrote the book, James h McCormack. James, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Thanks for joining us.

James H McCommons: 04:23

Thank you for having me.

Mike Brasher: 04:24

I'm gonna start out and just ask you to give a give a little background on on who you are. Let people get to know you a little bit.

James H McCommons: 04:32

Well, I was most recently a professor. I taught for twenty years at Northern Michigan University, teaching journalism and nature writing. Prior to that, I was an editor at Organic Gardening magazine. I was also a freelancer for about ten years writing mostly for magazines. And before that, a a journalist at some small newspapers in Wyoming and Michigan.

James H McCommons: 05:00

And I always covered a little bit of the outdoors and was always interested in natural history. And so that was part of my background, although I did a lot of other kinds of writing.

Mike Brasher: 05:13

Whenever we received some some, I guess, communication with you and and others in your circle about the opportunity to to interview you and and cover this book. Several of our hosts were were contact to get contacted and asked who was interested, and I quickly raised my hand because I'm I'm a huge fan, as you and I were talking before we started recording, of the history of bird conservation. It's the field that I've worked in all my career, and it is truly a remarkable story when you go all the way back to the eighteen fifties and 1860 late eighteen hundreds of of how so many different people from all walks of life were responsible in in some ways for the decimation of wildlife and bird populations, but then also realized the harm that was being brought to those populations and then began to mobilize in different circles and in different ways to to try to reverse things, to try to bring a a halt to the to the decimation of those populations, and and they did that through a number of ways. And your book chapter by chapter covers many of those stories starting with the passenger pigeon and leading up to some of the pivotal legislation that shaped the the landscape of migratory bird conservation in North America as we know it today.

Mike Brasher: 06:34

What was it that motivated you to go down this road, James?

James H McCommons: 06:38

Well, I did a book before this, a biography of George Shiras the third. And George Shiras was he's been called the world's first wildlife photographer, but he's also the originator of the migratory bird act. In nineteen o four, he introduced a bill to protect game birds. And so when I wrote this story about Cyrus, I had to learn a lot of history of that period of the Gilded Age and Progressive period, and this is a period of history that I've always been interested in anyway. And what I realized was that there was a much larger story here and that many of these characters that I had met and researched to some degree in the Shaira's book that there was a larger piece, and I I really wanted to to do that.

James H McCommons: 07:33

And so I went back and started looking about ways to put this together. And you're right, there was a varied cast of characters who came together in order to pass this kind of legislation, and really also to just to change the culture against killing birds to saving birds. And it brought in just so many things that I had been interested in that I took off on this journey of three years of research to write this book.

Mike Brasher: 08:05

Many of our listeners are going to be waterfowl hunters, and if any of those folks are are students of the history of of waterfowling and waterfowl conservation, you will be familiar with many of these stories that are in this book, but you will get a new appreciation for the level of detail and some of the behind the scenes stories of it. I certainly did. As I read through the book, there's a lot of discussion about market hunting. There's a lot of discussion about, I mean, things like like like the Lacey Act, the Weeks McLean Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act. There's a number of references to famous duck clubs and duck hunting locations, such as Big Lake and Real Foot Lake, and Lake Surprise down on the Texas coast, and some of the fantastic stories that go along with with those places, of feuding families, feuding parties over the resource.

Mike Brasher: 09:02

There's a it's a really it's one of the things that that when you look back in about the history of different types of you know, conservation around different groups of animals, it seems to me and maybe this is a great question for you, James, because of the work that you've done and that you've written about. Do birds stand out as a group that has a deeper history in that from that standpoint because of the the commercialized nature of of the of the the harvest that occurred way back in the day to all of the different pieces and organizations that came about because of or is bird is the history of bird conservation different from that in other groups of of wildlife?

James H McCommons: 09:44

Well, I think it's it's it's encompassing. So obviously, it encompasses game birds and non game birds. And and also the way people, you know, viewed birds, were were they looking at them as, you know, objects of beauty? Were they looking at them as as something to pursue, to hunt? There was a lot of people who found inspiration in in bird life, and so I think it brought in poets writers and and other folks like that.

James H McCommons: 10:14

What I found fascinating was how these these folks came together in this coalition. And yeah, I I I think it is different, but I think, you know, of course, this is a period when wildlife was being decimated across the board. And the birds, I think a lot of people could relate to because it was somehow part of their life.

Mike Brasher: 10:37

You have a chapter in here at the beginning talking was it called the shotgun shotgun ornithologist? I think that may be Correct. May not be exactly. Okay. Also, talk about egg collectors.

Mike Brasher: 10:47

Even today, there are black markets for these type of things. Although that practice has been banned in most most developed countries or or regulated, there's a still an underground market for those types of things, illegally collected and transported birds or eagle illegally collected and transported eggs. But that's really how it all started, the feather trade, the egg trade, the specimen trade, as how people began to study these things. And and so you tell the story in a wonderful way of how some of those figures, some of those people that got their start and their I mean, they they loved these birds to death literally, but then they some of them, thankfully, recognized the errors of their ways and recognized what was going to happen if something didn't change. And then in some cases, those individuals that practice that type of of, you know, liberal collection of eggs and and specimens ended up being leaders in in the conservation world.

Mike Brasher: 11:48

What was it like to sorta how much of this story did you know, and what were some of the more fascinating things that you that you actually learned in the process?

James H McCommons: 11:58

Well, I think the one person that I came across was William Brewster, who is pictured in the book as a 16 year old boy with his friends hunting birds in in New Hampshire. I think the picture was taken in 1865. He ended up being an ornithologist who collected 40,000 some birds in his lifetime and they formed the core of the collection at Harvard University. Yet he's also one of the founders of the American Ornithologist Union and he's the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. So his story was very interesting because, you know, he always was a specimen collector, and this was a period where ornithologists were trying to figure out, you know, the taxonomy of these birds and the classifications of them.

James H McCommons: 12:56

Eventually he realized that that he could leave the gun at home and he could identify birds through sight ornithology, and he was the one who moved the American Ornithologists Union and to embrace the Audubon Society because there was this feeling between the two groups that there was a little, you know, animosity between them or just even a little suspicion because anybody who was not a Bonnist was saying, save the birds and then these scientific ornithologists, these shotgun ornithologists were worried, well, that might include us, and and we wanna collect specimens. So he helped bridge that gap, and he wasn't the only one who made that transition.

Mike Brasher: 13:45

You talked before we started recording, we were discussing, you know, some of the things that were more notable that you were that you wanted to share, and and one of those relates to the role of of of hunters. We talk often now about the contributions that hunters make to conservation organizations, to habitat management, all through their contributions to, you know, license sales, philanthropy to to organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon and and all sorts of many hunters that belong to those other organizations, but hunters are are also pivotal figures in this book through a number of key stories. I identify some of those, and and what do you want What are what are the what do you want people to take away from that, from the hunter aspect of it? Again, sort of demonstrating the diversity of of people and walks of life that contribute to this overall story.

James H McCommons: 14:45

Well, that's right. I mean, George Shiras was one of those those hunters when he first introduced that bill. But there was the American Game Protective and Propagation Association, a a a very convoluted name. But they were the ones that came into the bird fight around 1910, 1911 and really helped pushed it across the line. And the Audubon folks allied themselves with them.

James H McCommons: 15:17

But I think it's important that folks understand that the hunting community provided a lot of the muscle, the lobbying muscle at that time, and and provided important funds at that time that in order them to to, you know, to move this forward. There was a real alliance between all these birding groups and and hunters during this period of the Weeks McClain and and the migratory bird treaty. And so I really wanted to get that across. Now that coalition did fray somewhat in the nineteen twenties, but they really came together during that that first twenty years of the twentieth century.

Mike Brasher: 15:58

Some of the tidbits that folks are likely to find in this books in this book are things as entertaining as how the the Weeks McLean Act, I believe it was. And and so, James, I'm kinda having I'm blanking here. The Weeks McLean Act is the same as the migratory bird act?

James H McCommons: 16:16

That's right. It was Yeah. Yeah. It it it was the the first the law was passed, I think, 1911, 1913 perhaps. It very quickly challenged in the US Supreme Court.

James H McCommons: 16:29

And one of the interesting things that happened was that the proponents realized that that this was probably gonna get shot down in the Supreme Court because there was still this this feeling that the state's own wildlife, you know, that the feds had had nothing to do with it. And the way to get around that was to create a treaty with Canada and then that would make it the Supreme Court wouldn't be able to touch it because of the supremacy class. So there were some real machinations going on during this period.

Mike Brasher: 17:06

The thing that I found really in entertaining was that that the Weeks McLean Act was there's two stories that stuck out in my mind that that, you know, trace their their origin or their being to to Washington DC and the halls of congress. And the Weeks McLean Act was something that it it sounded to me like the outgoing president was William Howard Taft. He was not a fan of of this act or a certain amendment associated with it, but the house and the senate both passed it as they they attached it as a rider. Maybe they attached some amendment or they maybe they attached the act or something.

James H McCommons: 17:48

They yeah. They attach it as a rider to it.

Mike Brasher: 17:51

As a rider to an appropriations Right. And this all happened right around the time when when Taft was leaving office, and I believe Woodrow Wilson was coming into office, and you you tell the story as though in the hustle and bustle around that transition from one president to the next, Taft did not realize that the bill that had landed on his desk for his signature actually included, as a writer, the Weeks McLean Act, which is something that he had he had formerly opposed. Is that that that was really entertaining.

James H McCommons: 18:24

Yeah. It I mean, it's kind of amazing. He was he was against the act to begin with because he felt that he he had he had been a judge. He later became The US chief justice of the supreme court, so he knew his law and he said that the states were the ones who owned wildlife, not the feds, and so he was against that bill to begin with. And then he also said he had said separately that he was against any rider being put on this appropriations bill.

James H McCommons: 18:56

And what happened was the Weeks McClain Act was put on the bill as a writer. It arrived on his desk the day of the inauguration, and he literally signed it. And of course, it's probably a big bill, he never did read it, but he didn't know that that was in there. And so he actually signed it and then went off with Woodrow Wilson to the inauguration.

Mike Brasher: 19:21

That's amazing. The other story that I remembered sort of in in terms of how a piece of legislation came to pass was, I believe it was the Lacey Act. The speaker of the house at that time was a was a big, you know, opponent of of the Lacey Act, which was the act that made it a federal offense to transport across state lines game that had been harvested or wildlife that had been harvested in violation of a state law. What would what had previously been able to occur is that if if poachers or hunters exceeded the the allowable sort of state limit or broke a state law and then traveled across state lines, they were outside the jurisdiction of the state for which they violated the law, and then they could essentially evade evade prosecution. The Lacey Act would have made it a federal and did make it a federal offense if you transported game across state lines that had been illegally taken in the in the other state.

Mike Brasher: 20:19

And so but the house the speaker of the house at that time was opposed to this legislation. And I want you to tell this story. How did the person that was pushing this bill convince the speaker to to allow it to go to the house floor for a vote?

James H McCommons: 20:32

Well, Joe Cannon was this was the speaker of the house, and he was known for opposing this measure. He was also very upset with Theodore Roosevelt for many of the presidential orders that Roosevelt had done to create national forests, those kind of things. So when this bill came out, Joe Cannon was against it. They used to call him uncle Joe. He was very powerful in as a speaker of the house.

James H McCommons: 21:01

John Lacey was pushing for the bill, and one day he knew that Joe Cannon liked apples. And so he went and got some apples to give to the speaker, but he made sure that they were wormy apples and and they were damaged. And he gave one to Joe Cannon and he said, have you ever seen an apple that looked like this? And and Cannon didn't wanna eat it. He looked at it and he and he said, yes.

James H McCommons: 21:31

Why? And what Lacey said was, well, this is what happens when we don't have birds that are eating the worms that that ruin our apples. And and this was an argument that had been made about it was called economic ornithology that birds were very beneficial to agriculture, very beneficial to farmers, and Lacey thought that this would be an argument that would help convince Cannon, and and it and it did.

Mike Brasher: 22:04

That's a story that I had never heard, but it's a very unique and useful insight into the the ways that that people get others' attention and can motivate them to take a certain action. It's it's remarkable, and and it's real what's really remarkable that you were able to find that and incorporate that into the book. James, we're gonna take a break right now. We're gonna we're gonna come back. We have a few more questions for you.

Mike Brasher: 22:32

I wanna hear, like, what all went into researching this book and researching all these stories. How much did you have to travel and those types of things? And then we'll close out with just some some final thoughts from you and maybe a few other stories from the book. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back.

VO: 22:53

Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.

Mike Brasher: 24:59

Hey, everyone. Welcome back. We are talking with James h McCormack, the author of a brand new book that is out called the feather wars and the great crusade to save America's birds. James, what goes into researching for for this type of book that dates back includes stories all the way back to the eighteen fifties? Obviously, the Internet is gonna make some of this easier now, but I suspect you still had to travel, physically travel quite a bit.

Mike Brasher: 25:26

What was that like?

James H McCommons: 25:27

Oh, well, that was a a fun part of the book. Often, I particularly like writing, and I'm I like getting all my research done and then I feel good when I when I know I have enough and I can start to write. This book was fun to be on the road. So a lot of it happened during COVID. I have this small pop up camper and I just basically went on the road and started hitting archives and, you know, went from Connecticut all the way to California and did that over the course of two to three years.

James H McCommons: 26:03

And I had an idea of certain places I wanted to go to. I I I knew I I needed to go to Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania and and but I wasn't sure where to go after that. But again, archivists are really wonderful people, they'll give you recommendations and and so one thing led to another. And I found myself probably at about 15 or 20 colleges in their archives. I mean, when I wanted to research a Dick and Darling, I knew I was going to Iowa.

James H McCommons: 26:38

And, yeah, it was it it was a fun time and about three years of research.

Mike Brasher: 26:44

Did the 2019 paper I think it was in the journal, the science or nature twice now this week that I've forgotten which pay which journal that was in, but Rosenberg Ken Rosenberg, the 3,000,000,000 birds paper, did that did you have this idea? Were you working on this idea before that paper, or did did did that paper kinda stimulate you to want to look into this?

James H McCommons: 27:07

That paper really helped motivate me that this is a story that I should be telling about what happened in the past because today we're facing a crisis in birds as well. And and how did these people handle it in the past? And because it was a big problem, and and at the same time, it took a lot of years to overcome it. So yeah, when I when I was looking at doing this book, that report came out and that sort of bookends the the narrative. I I talk about that in the introduction and in the epilogue as well.

James H McCommons: 27:44

In between, it's really history. It it's it's that period from about 1870 to 1930 that I try to cover and many of these people who were involved in it.

Mike Brasher: 27:55

The the paper that I was trying to recall, the the, you the where it's located is the paper's called the the decline of the North American avifauna. It's in the journal Science by doctor Ken Rosenberg and colleagues, many of whom several here from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, US Geological Survey, and other prominent ornithologists. And and it was really interesting, James, that just yesterday yesterday afternoon, I was speaking with a a graduate student from from Southern California. I forget the university. She had called to interview me about the state of the birds report that the North American Bird Conservation Initiative puts out every few years, And she was asking me about that 2019 paper and asked if if it if it fundamentally changed anything.

Mike Brasher: 28:47

Did we see an a dramatic increase in the investment in bird conservation or the attention in bird conservation? And, of course, I I talked about how well we didn't necessarily see a huge influx in, you know, like a a financial or programmatic investment. We've been it's been challenging times for bird conservation and investments in bird conservation, bird monitoring for for for quite some time, trying to get better at that, always asking for more. But it did elevate the issue and put it on the radar of a lot of additional people and led to more work and more attention and more communication about the issue, and this is a great example of of that. So that's pretty cool to hear that that you it it would was a motivating factor in in your quest.

James H McCommons: 29:32

Yeah. And I really felt that it it needed to be addressed at the end in in the epilogue. Where do, you know, where do we go from here? And and so I outlined some of the findings of that, some of the threats to birds, and then speculate on, you know, where we can go from here.

Mike Brasher: 29:51

James, I wanna go back a little bit and tell another story that that many duck hunters, seasoned duck hunters, his you know, students of duck hunting and waterfowling history may be aware of, and that relates to the migratory bird treaty act and the first big challenge that that came about, you know, following its passage. You mentioned earlier that there was still a lot of opposition to this idea of federal regulation over what states believed was, you know, was was state owned wildlife despite being migratory, and and there were challenges all along the way. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was a way to that that folks thought would would solidify the constitutionality of federal management of this or oversight of this resource. And there is a classics a classic story involving a federal game warden and the attorney general for the state of Missouri. The federal game warden is named was named Ray Holland, and it ultimately ended in a a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in the case Holland versus the state of Missouri, or I'm not it may be those things reversed, but Holland versus Missouri.

Mike Brasher: 31:12

Tell that story, and you provided some incredible detail new details, you know, behind that that I wasn't aware of.

James H McCommons: 31:19

Well, I heard that story before. And to know about Ray Holland, Ray Holland, as a young man, was a federal game warden, but Ray Holland was also a writer and and became an outdoor editor in in New York and had a great career as a writer. So I looked up Ray Holland's papers, you know, where those papers were, and they were in a college in Connecticut. And I so I went to look at those archives. I knew the story about Holland arresting the attorney general of Missouri for shooting ducks, And his the attorney general's name was Frank McAllister.

James H McCommons: 32:01

And I felt that Holland had to address that in his papers. And I was lucky when I when I got to the archives, there was a unpublished biography that Holland had written and there were two or three chapters in there that addressed that day when he arrested the attorney general. And so what happened was the the the migratory bird treaty act had passed, and there was bound to be a test of that in the US Supreme Court to to test that treaty. And they were looking for who was who was that going to be. And the attorney general of Missouri was a duck hunter, he was also a state's rights advocate, and he told everybody that he was gonna go duck hunting that spring and and and actually the spring there was no spring season because of the the federal law.

James H McCommons: 33:01

And he encouraged everybody else in the state to do that as well who were duck hunters, and he said, you know, we will defend you if you're if you're arrested. Holland decided that he was going to tail the the attorney general, and he got information that the attorney general went to the Stoltz Lake Duck Club in Nevada, Missouri, and he went down there on a train with another deputy early in the morning, went on to the duck club, kinda faked his way onto it. No one really knew that he was coming. He arrested the attorney general, and the attorney general became the test case in the US Supreme Court.

Mike Brasher: 33:44

The part about them kinda masquerading as duck hunters to gain access to the locked property is the part of that conversation that I had never heard. And then there's also another famous part of that story where after the arrest had been I think we've talked about this on a previous, DU podcast. After the arrest was made, and in Holland, the federal warden confiscated the the the the waterfowl, the illegally harvested ducks, the sheriff of that county turned around at the direction of presumably the attorney general or his office and arrested the federal agent and charged him with possessing waterfowl without a valid Missouri hunting license, which was just amazing. That's what you mean. So that's in the, I think, the chapter titled Backwoods Horseplay.

Mike Brasher: 34:33

The moment I saw that title to that chapter, I I was about 99% sure that that story was gonna be in there. There's also another story in there, I think, around that was centered around Big Lake. Right? Is that where that one was, or was that somewhere else?

James H McCommons: 34:48

Oh, we don't we're not talking about Holland anymore then.

Mike Brasher: 34:51

Right. No. Not talking about Holland anymore. There was maybe I'm confused. No.

Mike Brasher: 34:55

That's right. Backwoods Horseplay was Missouri versus Holland, but there was something else that you you talked about in in the some of what was happening around Big Lake and the Yeah. The feuding and controversy there.

James H McCommons: 35:09

At at at Big Lake, what was there were some humorous times during the the duck wars that went on there when the the sportsmen and the the market hunters and the swamp angels as they were called, the subsistence hunters or folks got into it. They were burning down clubhouses of the of the sport hunters. And yeah. The the actual anecdote, I I can't remember now, but people were drinking a lot and and guns and there was threats and it but it ended up being a couple people did get killed during that.

Mike Brasher: 35:55

Yeah. There's a number of stories of of of murder, people being shot in the book. Yes. So a little bit of a little bit of intrigue there. You also have a chapter devoted to one of the most famous names in in waterfowl conservation, that being Ding Darling, the father of of the of the duck stamp, the first, you know, artist the the art artist of the first duck stamp and and some of his involvement and the the key the key things that he did to to get the to to bring to light the the dire situation that waterfowl population were facing in the nineteen thirties.

Mike Brasher: 36:36

He's he's got some coverage in there, a number of other key stories. What are one of the are there any of the other big ones big stories that you wanna highlight here? We're gonna start wrapping up here in a moment. I'll ask you for some some closing thoughts. But are there any other stories in here that really stood out to you that you think our audience would would wanna sorta know about and encourage them to go purchase this?

James H McCommons: 36:58

Well, the the Lake Surprise one I really like with Forrest McNair. And Lake Surprise, of course, was a a a canvas back lake near Galveston. And I was just thrilled when I came across the book that Forrest McNair had written about himself. And of course it was during the time that he was a market hunter working on Lake Surprise in Texas. And then afterwards, you know, he became a trap shooter and and a very good one.

James H McCommons: 37:33

There's some wonderful stories in his book that I took from there. I mean, when you write these books, you're looking to tell a story about, you know, the legislation and the organizations and all those kind of things. But what really makes a book sing is having these anecdotes. And, of course, all of these actions were done by people, and, you know, these people have stories to tell. So, you know, the thing is trying to find the stories and and bring those out.

Mike Brasher: 38:03

This is a a tremendous treatment on the history of migratory bird conservation, key figures, key actions, key activities, and events, but there's a lot I think that can be brought forward. You have a final chapter that does identify and talk about some of the modern day concerns and threats facing bird populations. What do you want readers to take away from this and to know about our continuing role in in migratory bird conservation?

James H McCommons: 38:38

Well, think part of it is that that there are things that we can be doing as individuals and even around our own homes to preserve birds. Two of the biggest threats to birds today are outdoor cats and feral cats, and so that's a change of pet culture that not letting your cat roam around free is something that that can be changed. The danger of birds flying in the windows is something that has not been recognized until just the last twenty or thirty years. And I tell the story of a biology professor in Pennsylvania who's who's made this his life's work. And and there are ways that we can we can mitigate those problems when it comes to using lawn chemicals.

James H McCommons: 39:31

You know, we can certainly grow more organic type lawns or have more bird friendly plantings in our yard than just turf grass. So there's those kind of things that people can do just on their own. So it's it's it's there are some long term things. I I also make a point in that epilogue to talk about the amount of money that has been given to conservation efforts by hunters and that it's really time for recreational folks, bird watchers, campers, all those folks to pitch in as well, and we need to find a way to do that.

Mike Brasher: 40:14

That's right. And you also mentioned the need for for for habitat, for habitat conservation and the role of hunters and everyone, all conservation organizations that that play into that. Obviously, that's what Duxolomida does, and that's why we're excited to help bring this story to our people, and and it it is. If if you are if you're interested in or if you've thought about being interested in the the history of migratory bird conservation, waterfowl conservation, check out this book, The Feather Wars and the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds by James h McCormack. It's a very, very fascinating read, very approachable, very easy read, and and great detail.

Mike Brasher: 40:57

So, James, thank you for writing this. Thank you for allowing us to to speak with you about this. What's next for you? Is there another chapter to this, or are you on to another project that you that you can talk about?

James H McCommons: 41:08

Well, I'm not on to another natural history project, but I'm I'm starting to think about another book. That's it at this point.

Mike Brasher: 41:17

Okay. Well, we we won't ask you to divulge anything about that, but good luck to you in those in those future writing efforts, and we'll keep our eye out for for your name. James, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for writing the book.

James H McCommons: 41:32

I appreciate it.

Mike Brasher: 41:33

A very special thanks to James H. McCormack for joining us today to talk about the Feather Wars and the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds. I encourage everyone out there to check it out. You'll learn a lot about the history of of conservation of migratory birds and why hunters played how hunters played such a valuable part and why there's a continuing role for us to play in modern day and in future efforts. We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, who does a great job setting up these these episodes and producing them and getting them out to you.

Mike Brasher: 42:00

And then to you, the listener, we thank you for your time and spending it with us, and we thank you for your support and commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.

VO: 42:10

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VO: 42:32

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