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 National Science
Foundation Award #0550268 |
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Science and Nature Recreation: Birding and Conservation, 1890--2005 |
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| Investigator(s): |
Thomas Dunlap (PI)
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| Sponsor: |
Texas A&M Research Foundation, TX 77843 9798453806
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| Start Date/Expiration Date |
2006-06-01 to 2007-05-31 (amended 2006-04-12) |
| Awarded Amount to Date: |
$20,000 |
| Abstract: Science and Nature Recreation
Birding and Conservation, 1890--2005
Project Summary
This project will study the hobby of birding (formerly called bird watching) and the conservation programs associated with it from the 1890s to the present to see how ordinary citizens used scientific information and interacted with scientists in the pursuit of an outdoor recreation. By complementing recent research on the development of American ornithology, done from the perspective of the scientific discipline, it will increase our understanding of Americans use of biological science from the time natural history gave way to ornithology to an era where ecology shapes scientific studies, public policy, and the public s view of nature. From birding s beginnings in the Audubon Society movement of the 1890s both the activity and the conservation program it campaigned for depended on science. In the first generation taxonomy told birders what counted (species) and how to arrange them in the field guides, while stomach contents studies justified bird protection. The next generation relied on scientific work on life-histories, distribution, and migration to argue for wildlife refuges and habitat protection and on the concept of a balance of nature to save the bird-eating hawks--at the time commonly shot on sight. After World War II ideas from wildlife biology and later ecology made many aware of habitat loss and environmental contamination and guided programs to restore endangered species. With the rise of environmentalism field guides emphasized birds needs and their relation to humans, while conservation used the new research to argue for programs that would preserve birds throughout the hemisphere. Intellectual Merit: This project contributes to the history of American science and American environmental history by studying the ways people who were not particularly interested in science used it to structure their hobby and press for government action to save birds and how, over the course of a century, natural history, then ornithology, then ecology shaped perspectives through informal nature education. It deals with the forms of that education, which ranged from trade books, field guides, and magazines to internet web pages, and the ways that each medium allowed or stressed different things in nature and different ways to know them. Printed field guides, for example, stressed plumage patterns because they could be described and pictured and neglected songs, which could not. Identifying species by ear became popular only when inexpensive high-quality recordings became available. Broader Impact: This study should be of interest to historians of science, environmental historians, and scholars working on tourism and recreation. Because it will analyze in detail field guides to birds and provide illustrations of these books it should attract a larger public as well, and I am working with William Cronon, editor of the Weyerhaeuser series in environmental history, to produce a manuscript for that series that will reach academic and popular audiences. I plan, as well, to develop articles on some aspects of the topic for journals of American history, environmental history, and the history of science. |
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| NSF Org: |
SES - Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Award Number: |
0550268 |
| Award Instrument: |
Continuing grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ronald Rainger
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
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| NSF Program(s): |
Hist & Philosophy of SET |
| Field Application(s): |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
UNASSIGNED, 0000 |
| Program Element Code(s): |
1353 |
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