This past Sunday being the anniversary of the birth of John James Audubon, it seems almost required that something be said in commemoration of that event. However, perhaps like many bird watchers and as a surprise to many non-practitioners of the activity, my feelings about J.J. Audubon and the role he played in the record of American natural history are somewhat mixed.
The fact that the nation’s foremost society associated with bird study and protection should be named after Audubon is one of history’s great ironies. While Audubon did express sentiments that could be termed conservationist, he also produced every image for which he is so well known by killing dozens of the species to be depicted. Truth be told, he was an artist far more than he was a naturalist. Now, I am not looking at how he practiced his craft anachronistically. Before the idea had been established by Ludlow Griscom that a bird could be identified without first killing it, the creation of the modern field guide by Roger Tory Peterson, and the availability of inexpensive field glasses, all early ornithology was practiced using a shotgun.
However beyond the mere irony that I find in the linking of the Audubon name to the modern notion of bird study and conservation, I see something less well known and more bothersome to me. Audubon was, in addition to being a fine artist, a master of self-promotion. The image known to the world of “Audubon the Great Woodsman” was more marketing than truth. In addition to this, he seemed to have a tendency to harshly criticize those whom he found to be a threat to either his work or his image – particularly John Kirk Townsend, who in truth contributed many of the specimens to Audubon that he subsequently painted. I worry that the legacies of many of the hard-working naturalists contemporary or just prior to Audubon – Wilson, Townsend, Nuttall, etc. – have been undervalued and far too often underappreciated as a result of standing in Audubon’s own somewhat manufactured shadow.
Yes, it is indeed proper to remember and pay tribute to John James Audubon on this day. However let us also remember him in perspective and not lose the recollection of all those other early naturalists who contributed so much to the understanding of American natural history as well. In truth, many of them worked closely together, or at least were influenced by the others, so that none was truly the product of his (or her) own hand alone.
