Celebrating the Snowy Egret

By Nick Lund

I think they look terrible, but what do I know about fashion? In the late 1800s, hats adorned with bird feathers—or even entire taxidermied birds—were all the rage. There was such a demand from fashionistas around the world that there was a robust market for feathers and plumes. Few species were spared: a famous survey by ornithologist Frank Chapman on the streets of New York City in 1886 counted hats featuring the feathers of 40 native species, including Tree Sparrow, Wilson’s Warbler, Snow Bunting, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Black Tern, and more.

Snowy Egrets, with their long, delicate breeding-season head plumes, were especially prized. In the days before hunting regulations, whole colonies of birds were shot at their nests and harvested for feathers. Snowy Egret plumes brought at times between $32 and $80 per ounce, more than twice the price of gold. A single 1902 auction in London sold the plumes from 192,960 Snowy Egrets. The carnage was boundless, and unsustainable.

Thankfully, a movement arose to push back. Audubon Societies were founded beginning in the 1880s, and early conservation laws like the Lacey Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act established protections for native birds. For some, like the now-extinct Carolina Parakeet, it was too late. But the Snowy Egret managed to survive, and has flourished since the plume craze ebbed. The breeding population of Snowy Egrets was restricted to Florida in the early part of the 20th century but they had expanded all the way to Maine—the northern limit of their breeding range—by 1961. Today they are a familiar summer resident around Scarborough Marsh, still sporting the famous plumes that, in my opinion, look much better on their heads than on ours.