A Tour of 125 Years of History Through the Bird Lens

We admit it—we’ve always had birds on the brain. Throughout Audubon’s 125 years of history, the magazine’s editors in all eras tended to look at globally significant moments, cultural developments, and interesting discoveries through a very distinct, very avian-focused perspective. In diving into our archives to mark our publication’s century-plus of continuous output, we noticed both major events and minor notes in our pages that reflected the times (for better and worse).

Below is a highly idiosyncratic tour of historic events—from world wars and pandemics to new-fangled computer technologies—as they were noted in our pages.  Needless to say, much was necessarily left on the cutting room floor. 

1899

The very first Bird-Lore issue notes the “present, widespread camera craze” and encourages readers to apply their enthusiasm to photographing birds. 

1900

Feathers abound in women’s fashion. The magazine calls out Harper’s Bazaar for erroneously reporting that herons are no longer killed for their plumes. We also highlight a milliner’s snarky ad that derided activists.

1918-19

Protection of birds—natural crop defenders—is urged in light of World War I food security fears. In France, U.S. soldiers perform three Christmas Bird Counts.

1932-33

While the last Heath Hen is presumed dead after failing to visit his booming grounds to perform a futile mating dance, hope springs eternal for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Just as ornithologists worried it, too, may be extinct, Audubon officials report several thriving in Louisiana and call for their protection. 

1935

“Conservation! It is perhaps the most momentous trend of the depression,” led a piece in Bird-Lore. But the Civilian Conservation Corps is deemed a mixed blessing: The New Deal program puts people to work but also ushers in ill-advised projects that do more ecological harm than good.

1942

Our nature columnist fawns over Disney’s animated film Bambi for awakening in millions of children a “new sympathy” for wildlife.  The writer pushes back on sportsmen who are unhappy with the film’s villainization of hunters, distinguishing between the poaching depicted in the movie and legal hunting practices.

1941-43

Audubon calls birders into service: Lend your binoculars to Uncle Sam to assist in the Navy in the World War II effort (they’ll be mailed back when it’s over!). Bombs from U.S. training bases and oil-spills from torpedoed tankers are among a number of avian risks we report in these trying times. Soldiers and nurses at one Army hospital create an impromptu bird sanctuary to help. 

1950s 

Suburban sprawl spawns an unusual baby boom: Audubon reports Ospreys nesting on utility infrastructure rather than disappearing tree snags—and the workers trying to help them—as well Red-tailed Hawks hatching atop an electric transmission line. Meanwhile, concerns grow about eagle electrocutions on wires, and the rise in roadkill on expanding highways.

1959

Ahead of the brewing feminist movement, a college student studying fish and wildlife management writes a letter seeking help connecting with “any other women in this field.”

1963

As Cold War nuclear fallout raises global alarm, the magazine points out how radioactive isotopes harm Alaskan wildlife and Native communities: “It is quite clear that the lichen/sedge ➞ caribou/reindeer ➞ carnivore/man food chain is contaminated.”

1968

Two critical social issues of the era—civil rights and the Vietnam War—are largely absent from the magazine’s pages, other than brief notes on how they divert political attention and funds from an ambitious green agenda.

1972

With visitors reaching remote places like Antarctica and Peru’s “teeming” bird islands, Roger Tory Peterson explores ecotourism’s potential to inspire travelers to care about conservation, but worries about the ecological footprint.

1976

The same year Apple is founded, Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology partner on a data bank of bird nesting colonies by feeding statistics “into the computer.”

1987

As golfing becomes more popular than ever, environmentalists scrutinize these water-guzzling, pesticide-ridden “playgrounds.”

1989

After Exxon Valdez dumps 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska’s coast, our takeaway is clear: “The first thing this spill should teach us is to get ready for the next one.”

1991

The environmental justice movement takes root. Our coverage notes how green groups mainly speak to the conservation concerns of suburbanites while neglecting the freeways and waste facilities that are “foisted off on minority and poor communities.”

1997

A new fossil discovery bolsters the hypothesis that modern birds descended from dinosaurs. “What I saw was breathtaking,” a previously skeptical paleontologist told Audubon. “It was a feathered dinosaur."

2001

Our September–October issue clearly goes to press before 9/11: It contains “Faulty Towers,” a story about birds colliding with cell-phone and TV structures. Audubon soon publishes 16 tributes in response to the September 11 attacks that illustrate how “crisis makes our connections to nature more important than ever.”

2002

Shortly after the world’s first cloned cat is born, we investigate the possibility of resurrecting extinct wildlife—starting with creating a live Tasmanian marsupial wolf “from a pickled one.”

2006

The mighty Mississippi River sustains cities, farms, and wildlife, even as people have tried to tame it into submission. After Hurricane Katrina, it’s apparent that “the only flood protection that ever worked is wetlands.”

2008

The financial crash spurs government stimulus funding that creates “green-collar” jobs. Advocates are hopeful: “The U.S. will not only chart a more sustainable course, it will also put people back to work.”

2010

Our special report immerses readers in the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico with gripping on-the-ground dispatches and makes the case for a clean energy transition.

2011

Greenwashing is in full bloom. To help readers make sense of all the environmental claims plastered on products lining grocery aisles, we provide an in-depth guide to the myriad labels.

2020

Audubon leans into sharing the “joy of birds” for respite and connection as the world shuts down during the pandemic. Our early reporting also homes in on how the global emergency affects conservation, the birding community, and birds themselves.

2022

The latest tourism frontier? Space. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are pioneering joy rides in space, envisioning colonies on Mars, and launching more and more satellites into close orbit—a boom that is posing a litany of new environmental risks on this one planet we’ve got.  

2023

Amid the rise of new artificial intelligence technologies that can generate photos, videos, and text out of whole cloth, we ponder: What happens when we can no longer tell whether a photo of a bird is real or fake?