Always Be Birdin'

Creature Feature: Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game

Episode Summary

Another double Creature Feature with two of my all time favorite birds, the Double-crested Cormorant and European Starling. I feature them today not only for their beauty and wildly amazing adaptations, but for their history and stories as birds thriving despite a level of human hatred that should be deeply concerning to any birder lover. In this episode I also only begin to touch on the ways in which these two birds are examples of how racism shows up in birding and goes way beyond what black, indigenous and brown folks have to deal with in the field, but that the act of birding is literally done through a racist lens. It surely doesn't have to be this way. So, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Episode Notes

Another double Creature Feature with two of my all time favorite birds, the Double-crested Cormorant and European Starling. I feature them today not only for their beauty and wildly amazing adaptations, but for their history and stories as birds thriving despite a level of human hatred that should be deeply concerning to any birder lover. In this episode I also only begin to touch on the ways in which these two birds are examples of how racism shows up in birding and goes way beyond what black, indigenous and brown folks have to deal with in the field, but that the act of birding is literally done through a racist lens. It surely doesn't have to be this way. So, don't hate the player, hate the game. 

Remember to donate to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AlwaysBeBirdin 50% of the proceeds go to my BIPOC guests. 

Check out the article "9 New Revelations for the Black American Bird Watcher" by J. Drew Lanham https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/05/nine-new-revelations-for-the-black-american-bird-watcher

The racist article that National Audubon still has on their website https://www.audubon.org/news/the-killing-warden