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 observation-based 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.
...More
Article
Russell McGregor;
(2022)
J. A. Leach’s Australian Bird Book: At the interface of science and recreation
(/isis/citation/CBB681830473/)
Thesis
Jackson Pope;
(2016)
Listening at the Lab: Bird Watchers and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
(/isis/citation/CBB585978342/)
Article
Stokland, Håkon B.;
(2015)
Field Studies in Absentia: Counting and Monitoring from a Distance as Technologies of Government in Norwegian Wolf Management (1960s--2010s)
(/isis/citation/CBB001422098/)
Article
Karen Kovaka;
(2021)
Evaluating Community Science
(/isis/citation/CBB988749229/)
Chapter
Gläser, Jochen;
(2010)
From Governance to Authority Relations?
(/isis/citation/CBB001420866/)
Thesis
Christian H. Ross;
(2021)
Editing Engagement: Visions of Science, Democracy, and Responsibility in Gene Editing Discourse
(/isis/citation/CBB263669907/)
Article
Federico Brandmayr;
(2021)
When Boundary Organisations Fail: Identifying Scientists and Civil Servants in L’Aquila Earthquake Trial
(/isis/citation/CBB058662495/)
Book
Tim Birkhead;
(2022)
Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History from Cave Art to Conservation
(/isis/citation/CBB429679681/)
Chapter
Vetter, Jeremy;
(2012)
Field Life in the American West: Surveys, Networks, Stations, and Quarries
(/isis/citation/CBB001210267/)
Book
Diane Smith;
(2017)
Yellowstone and the Smithsonian: Centers of Wildlife Conservation
(/isis/citation/CBB981445776/)
Article
Tiago Ribeiro Duarte;
(2020)
Ignoring scientific advice during the Covid-19 pandemic: Bolsonaro’s actions and discourse
(/isis/citation/CBB565587316/)
Book
Gil Eyal;
(2019)
The Crisis of Expertise
(/isis/citation/CBB193528078/)
Chapter
Gregory A. Liggett;
S. Terry Childs;
Nicholas A. Famoso;
H. Gregory McDonald;
Alan L. Titus;
Elizabeth Varner;
Cameron L. Liggett;
(2018)
From public lands to museums: The foundation of U.S. paleontology, the early history of federal public lands and museums, and the developing role of the U.S. Department of the Interior
(/isis/citation/CBB608011914/)
Article
Christian Ross;
(2022)
Handservant of Technocracy: Public Engagement and Expertise in Heritable Human Genome Editing
(/isis/citation/CBB828766557/)
Article
Robert Evans;
(February 2022)
SAGE advice and political decision-making: ‘Following the science’ in times of epistemic uncertainty
(/isis/citation/CBB466460955/)
Article
Monamie Bhadra Haines;
(February 2019)
Contested credibility economies of nuclear power in India
(/isis/citation/CBB710438620/)
Book
Kevin Driscoll;
(2022)
The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media
(/isis/citation/CBB172015710/)
Article
Gil Eyal;
(2022)
Mistrust in Numbers: Regulatory Science, Trans-science and the Crisis of Expertise
(/isis/citation/CBB212129456/)
Article
Hiro Saito;
(January 2021)
The Developmental State and Public Participation: The Case of Energy Policy-making in Post–Fukushima Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB786983437/)
Book
Russell McGregor;
(2019)
Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm
(/isis/citation/CBB142872598/)
Be the first to comment!