In the mid 1800s, feathers on hats were considered the height of women’s fashion in the United States and Europe. During this decades-long trend, plumes were at times worth more per ounce than gold. But obtaining those feathers came at a great cost. By the early 1900s, when Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society founders William Finley and Herman T. Bohlman were documenting birds and bird populations across Oregon through photography, they found that Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets had been almost extirpated from the wetlands of Southern Oregon. The egrets weren’t alone. Grebes, terns, and others were also being decimated. The most-desired egret feathers were the plumes, found only on birds during breeding season. That meant that egrets were killed for their feathers when they were courting each other or caring for their young. Not only did the adults perish, but the babies also died, securing the destruction of two generations of birds in one kill. All for a hat.
In a lecture solicited by the Portland Women’s Club in 1909, Finley talked about his travels to Klamath and Tule Lake and shared the grim reality of what he saw. He told the packed room, “Out through the tules, where we had seen the birds thick about their floating homes, I found deserted nests. There were eggs on all sides, never to be hatched. Beside several nests I saw dead grebe chicks that had climbed out in search of food that dead parents could never bring.” Finley ended his lecture with a plea to the audience to help stop the sale and trade of feathers, noting that “this vandalism will not cease while the reward of gold lasts.”
The volume of birds slaughtered for hats in the US, Europe, Australia, and South America is hard to imagine—skins were sold by the millions. Egret plumes were especially popular, and Oregon had marshes full of egrets. Until we didn’t. Much like other resource extractions across the West, such as the decimation of sea otters for pelts and old-growth forests for lumber, egrets were killed as if they were an unlimited resource. If they were to survive, bold action was essential.
Just as today, our early advocacy strategies were multifaceted. The campaign included Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society’s vigorous lobbying to pass the Model Bird Law in Oregon. This legislation protected non-game birds, their nests, and their eggs, and was intended to end the trade in bird feathers. Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society had an early success when the 1903 Oregon legislature passed this bill.
But, the same today as it was then, a law is only as good as its enforcement. Despite the new law, feathers were still in fashion, and the hat trade continued to flourish in Oregon.
As a second tactic, Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society accelerated a public awareness campaign targeted at the women buying the now illegal hats. In 1907 Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon sent every woman in “Portland’s Blue Book” (a book of the Portland elite) a leaflet describing how the plumes for their hats were gathered from the bloody destruction of whole egret colonies, with fledglings left to starve in the nest. This emotional appeal had some effect, but not enough.
As a second tactic, Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society accelerated a public awareness campaign targeted at the women buying the now illegal hats. In 1907 Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon sent every woman in “Portland’s Blue Book” (a book of the Portland elite) a leaflet describing how the plumes for their hats were gathered from the bloody destruction of whole egret colonies, with fledglings left to starve in the nest. This emotional appeal had some effect, but not enough.
The next appeal went right to the milliners and hat makers who had the power to stop buying and reselling plumes. In February 1909, Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon sent a notice to all milliners in the state that the prohibition on holding and selling plumes from protected birds would henceforth be enforced. Then they teamed up with local law enforcement to launch a sting operation. Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon president William Finley and his wife, Irene Finley, an accomplished conservationist, co-author and co-presenter with her husband, went as fast as they could from milliner to milliner to pose as hat buyers. From the news at the time:
“William L. Finley, president of the society, and H.T. Bohlman, secretary, led the expedition which precipitated a small panic among the dealers. Mr. Finley was accompanied by his wife and they did the purchasing of the white heron feathers, constable Wagner and Kiernan loitering in the background until the psychological moment for action. Although a warning had been sent out to every dealer in the state more than two months ago, it was found the warning had fallen short of results for no difficulty was met in buying the aigrettes.”
In total, nine citations with fines were made that day to milliners and department store proprietors for selling egret plumes, causing hundreds of dollars of hats and other finery to be seized as evidence. The news reported, “It has been planned hereafter to arrest all women who appear in public wearing prohibited finery.”
Finley and Bohlman received $46 as informants in the cases and donated it to the Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society. Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society also made up for the state’s lack of funding for enforcement by donating $300 for the wages of the two state game wardens sent to patrol Klamath and Malheur nesting colonies for the 1909 season. They also purchased The Grebe, a poaching patrol boat for Klamath National Wildlife Refuge.
In April 1909, Finley was campaigning against the feather trade, but by October of that year, he celebrated that “the slaughter of plume birds…is now effectively stopped.”
During this campaign, Finley and the Oregon Bird Alliance of Oregon Society also invested in lasting protections to the landscape. This meant securing critical habitat to give birds safe places to nest, feed, and rest. Finley and Bohlman used their extensive photography and knowledge of birds and habitat to educate President Roosevelt about the importance of Malheur and Klamath, and to persuade him to establish them as some of the first wildlife refuges in the West. Of course, the creation of Malheur, Klamath, and Three Arch Rocks refuges is a story of its own, one we’ll save for another time.
The strategies our founders used in the early 1900s to stop the plume trade—enlisting public support, supporting legislation and enforcement, and securing habitat—were broad-based, effective, and the model for the work we do now.
Today that work includes a partnership with Oregon Wildlife Coalition that established a fund to pay $500 to $1,000 for poaching reports that lead Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife troopers to an arrest or citation. In 2019 we successfully advocated to the legislature to increase penalties for poaching, and helped secure several million dollars for an anti-poaching campaign, a roving district attorney to focus on poaching statewide, and increased game officers within Oregon State Police.
Learn more about our current efforts to combat poaching.
