The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

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But in Britain, streams and rivers became inaccessible to any but the very rich, who owned the rights to the estates.

Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins--some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them--and escaped into the darkness. You wonder how the author found the willpower to keep going on in his investigation, when he hits so many dead ends. Author Kirk Wallace Johnson found his subject matter quite circuitously, as he was recovering from burnout; his efforts to resettle homeless Iraqis had resulted in a case of PTSD, and led to a fishing trip, and a quasi interest in fly fishing. This meant that I was a little impatient with the first few chapters, but if you are new to these subjects you shouldn’t have that problem.When I started this account (which opens with the theft itself), I kept ignoring that the suitcase used for the heist had wheels. If you enjoyed this article and want to see me do more, more often, please consider supporting me at patreon. Maybe it's the fact that so much of the story revolves around making fishing flies and I genuinely cannot imagine being even vaguely interested in making fishing flies. This is a fascinating book, connecting multiple topics of natural history, scientific endeavors, the hobby of fly-tying and mental illness. Journalist Johnson ( To Be a Friend Is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind, 2013) was fly-fishing in a New Mexico stream when he first heard about the “feather thief” from his guide.

At least some were from the historical collection famously accrued by Alfred Russel Wallace during his 19th century fieldwork in New Guinea and elsewhere, and all, of course, were part of the enormous, globally significant collection amassed by Walter Rothschild. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock. It became known as the "CITES" treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). As Rist himself later expressed in an interview with Johnson, the court fell for this hook, line and sinker, and they shouldn’t have. Edwin Rist's story fascinated Johnson not just because it was such a bizarre crime, but because of the underground world it revealed, where other tiers (this is how it's spelled, which drives me BONKERS; I keep wanting it to be spelled "tyers") chase rarer and rarer feathers, many of which come from endangered bird species that are protected by international treaties.This whole story is stranger than fiction, which would make it a great selection for readers who don’t often pick up nonfiction, perhaps expecting it to be dry or taxing. The “art of fly tying”, notably salmon ties, is one exotic, so rare and esoteric to be unheard of unless you have either read this book or indulged in this obsessive hobby. This is a true-crime, fascinating journey to attempt to bring to justice the "feather thief" who manages to manipulate and evade the consequences that he deserved. It's only 254 pages long, and it's a fast read (the rest of the page count is extensive notes, sources and an index).

There is a theft involved, of course, but Kirk Wallace Johnson does a fine job - enough to make me wince repeatedly - of bringing into focus the massacre of millions of birds simply because they're pretty. Jenna Bush Hager and Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, have teamed with Johnson to develop a series adaptation of the true-crime non-fiction book. When Johnson finally secures an interview with Edwin, Edwin casts doubt on his Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis and demonstrates no remorse for his crime. The author traces the origins of the feathers and how they came to be in the museum, which is far more interesting than one might think. While recovering he launched a non-profit to help the refugees but when he needed a break it was trout fishing that provided relaxation.That’s right: museum specimens were stolen so that they could be ripped to shreds and turned into fishing flies. People during this time period were obsessed with collecting natural specimens, which came to be seen as status symbols. One summer evening in 2009, twenty-year-old musical prodigy Edwin Rist broke into the Natural History Museum at Tring, home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world. I find birds to be fascinating and scientific advancement to be of paramount importance, so it was really hard for me to read about people actively working against that just so they can make trinkets.