What birds are Telling Us

by Joyce Volmut

“Birds are telling us—in their behavior, in their dwindling numbers and in their silence—that we must take action now, and that we must take action where birds need us most.” This statement, taken from National Audubon tells me that birds are in trouble and they need our help. This is what conservation is all about.

The National Audubon Society started in 1905. This was a time of growing movement to protect birds. The first Audubon Society was organized by two Boston environmentalists, Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, in response to the widespread slaughter of waterbirds, the gorgeous feathers of which were used to make women’s hats. The pair’s efforts in Massachusetts soon helped inspire similar organizations across the country.

What these women developed was a front line organization bent on bird conservation. In the decades that followed, the organization was on the front lines of the conservation movement, influencing policymakers to pass key legislation. Notable conservation laws in which Audubon helped pass include the Audubon Plumage Law in 1910 that protected wading birds from the depredations of the plume industry, the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act—still one of the strongest bird-protection laws in the world today—that made it illegal to kill any non-game bird in the U.S., the Endangered Species Act in 1973, and the climate-change-focused Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

The legacy of bird conservation can be seen in the mission statement at National Audubon, “to protect birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation.” Audubon Washington adopted the National mission statement and our own Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society (OPAS) follows suit with “promotes birding and habitat conservation through science-based education, advocacy, and stewardship.”

To refer you back to the opening statement of this article “what birds are telling us”, they need our action now. I am reminded of a remarkable teacher who once told me that each of us are leaders in our own way, some with a big “L” and some with a little “l.” Each are important in the scheme of things because we each have the ability to influence someone, whether it be our families, our neighbors, our community, or our nation.

So I ask you - in our own chapter mission statement that “promotes birding and habitat conservation through science-based education, advocacy, and stewardship”— which are you? A big “L” or a little “l”?