Valuing Shorebirds: Bureaucracy, Natural History, and Expertise in North American Conservation
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Valuing Shorebirds: Bureaucracy, Natural History, and Expertise in North American Conservation Kristoffer Whitney1 Accepted: 8 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This article follows shorebirds—migratory animals that have gone from game to nongame animals over the course of the past century in North America—as a way to track modern field biology, bureaucratic institutions, and the valuation of wildlife. Doing so allows me to make interrelated arguments about the history of wildlife management and science. The first is to note the endurance of observationbased natural history methods in field biology over the long twentieth century and the importance of these methods for the persistent contribution of amateurs. The second major line of argument advances the historical significance of scientific, government bureaucracies as sites of natural knowledge production. Historians of biology and ecology have tended to stress scientists with institutional homes in universities, museums, and at land-grant field stations—particularly as various forms of field biology became professionalized over the twentieth century. In contrast, migratory animals like shorebirds, whether under the auspices of the US Biological Survey or the contemporary Fish and Wildlife Service, were primarily studied and conserved by biologists in bureaucratic agencies. Mid- to low-level bureaucrats, along with avocational birders, have mainly been responsible for developing what we know about shorebird migration, behavior, and life history. And third, shorebirds foreground the importance of bureaucratic context for the valuation of nature, from their economic value to agriculture in the early twentieth century to their value as rare, endangered species in the twentyfirst. Keywords Wildlife · Conservation · Natural history · Bureaucracy · Amateurs
* Kristoffer Whitney [email protected] 1
Science, Technology & Society Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, Eastman Hall 1‑2138, 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623‑5604, USA
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Introduction The winter 1987 issue of American Scientist included an article entitled “Conservation Strategies for Migratory Species” (Myers et al. 1987a). Written by a group of scientists with home institutions stretching from Canada to Argentina, the piece focused exclusively on shorebirds as “migratory species” par excellence. It highlighted the connection between the Delaware Bay (a major stopover in the northeastern United States) and the natural history of Western Hemisphere shorebirds. Separated by 75 years, in 1912, Country Life in America had included an article by US Biological Survey scientist W. L. McAtee (1883–1962) entitled “Why We Should Protect Our Shore Birds” (McAtee 1912). These two articles are remarkably similar. Both pointed out that shorebirds were particularly vulnerable wildlife populations due to their low reproductive rates and the many dangers they faced during their long, hemisphere-wide migrations. Further, the articles pointed to popul
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