Editor鈥檚 Note: Since this story ran in print (in the May/June 2023 issue of 国产吃瓜黑料), Kaestner鈥檚 life list has increased to 9,856 species, as of May 11, 2023. He is now the world record holder.

Dust as fine as talcum powder washes the landscape in desolate browns, and bromeliads cling to the west side of rocky slopes, facing the direction that mist blows in from the ocean. Columnar cacti the size of telephone poles resemble hands outstretched toward the sky鈥攑uffy, like surgical gloves filled with water.

I was sitting in the middle seat of a battered van snaking up switchbacks to the summit of Tinajas Valley, tires inches from the edge of steep drop-offs. Next to me was Peter Kaestner, one of the world鈥檚 most prolific birders. 鈥淚 can see why I haven鈥檛 seen this bird before,鈥� he said, speaking loudly as the van rumbled over dirt and rocks. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the kind of thing you鈥檙e gonna bump into.鈥� Kaestner is tall, with friendly blue eyes, and gives off a smart approachability. (He jokes that when he was younger he resembled Robert Redford, but he knew that he鈥檇 hit a turning point in his life when people started comparing him to former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.)

We were headed to a ridgetop to look for the elusive , a drab brown bird with a curved beak like a T. rex claw. The bird prefers steep-walled desert washes at specific elevations in the central Andes, and would be a 鈥渓ifer鈥� for Kaestner. Birders call the complete tally of all birds they鈥檝e ever observed their 鈥渓ife list,鈥� and each new species a lifer. A person who keeps track of their life list is a 鈥渓ister,鈥� and someone obsessed with listing on a global scale is a 鈥渂ig lister.鈥�

I鈥檓 a lister myself, though than chasing them. For my PhD at the University of New Mexico, I studied hummingbird migration and speciation in the Andes. These days I work as a postdoc at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which runs , the go-to platform for scientists and hobbyists to record bird observations.

On eBird, Kaestner is ranked number one, and he wants to be the first person in the world to see 10,000 bird species. The 69-year-old鈥檚 life list is currently at 9,796. The couple hundred birds he still needs are some of the rarest and most difficult in the world to spot. They鈥檙e often found in places that are basically inaccessible, off-limits due to political unrest, or threatened by deforestation and climate change. But Kaestner鈥檚 quest to hit 10,000 is his personal Dawn Wall, an obsession he鈥檚 sustained over decades, and he will not stop until he reaches his goal鈥攊f even then.

He鈥檇 come to Peru on this 20-day trip in the summer of 2021 to see a handful of the country鈥檚 remaining species needed for his life list, and the journey had started out a little rough. During his first night above 15,000 feet, near the Bolivian border just ten days earlier, Kaestner thought he might die of altitude sickness. On an overnight bus to the city of Oxapampa soon after, the driver turned off the air-conditioning over a mountain pass and the cabin became hot and stagnant. COVID risk was high, and Kaestner said the bus felt like a human petri dish. His trip wouldn鈥檛 get easier: for one of his top targets, the Ayacucho antpitta, he needed permission to navigate through an unstable area ravaged by Shining Path guerrillas. He expected the middle leg, which I had joined him for, to be relatively tame. 鈥淏oring鈥� was the word he used.

As our van slid past another huge vehicle on the singletrack road, tires knocking rocks down the cliffside, I held my breath and wondered about his standard for boredom. Then, as a truck came nose-to-nose with our van, the clutch stopped working. We were on a steep hill.

鈥淭here鈥檚 too much dust鈥攊t must be clogging the transmission,鈥� said Gunnar Engblom, guide and owner of , who had organized our trip. A lanky and who was 60 at the time, Engblom had come to Peru about 25 years earlier to start his bird- and photography-tourism business. He switched from English to frantic Spanish, addressing our driver from the passenger seat.

A look of annoyance appeared on Kaestner鈥檚 face. We鈥檇 departed late from Lima, then battled incessant traffic, and it was unclear whether Engblom鈥檚 run-down van would even make the summit. At best this meant that we would arrive in the hot afternoon, the worst time of day for bird activity, before driving another eight hours to our next destination. Engblom鈥檚 reputation as 鈥淐aptain Chaos鈥� was well-known in the bird world (one client described him as the 鈥淐rocodile Dundee of South America鈥�) and Kaestner knew what he was getting into. Still, even for Kaestner, a former U.S. diplomat who built a career managing high-stakes logistics, the situation was trying. After all he鈥檇 invested, he didn鈥檛 want to miss his target鈥攐r 鈥渄ip,鈥� as birders say.

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In July 1992, two Danish birders visiting Patagonia, Arizona reported the first-ever, mega-rare 听in the United States. Back then, reporting rare birds required phoning in observations to a 鈥渞are bird phone tree,鈥� usually via the nearest pay phone鈥攁nd hoping that word got out. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn鈥檛. In this case, a couple of other out-of-towners鈥攁 birder from Mississippi and another from Nebraska鈥攕aw the species. The Nebraskan photographed the hummingbird, flew home, developed the slide film, and snail-mailed photos to the Arizona committee in charge of validating unusual sightings. Only then did word spread, but it was too late: the hummingbird was gone, and Arizona birders missed it.

This kind of tragedy would never befall Arizona birders today. Now, within minutes of seeing a rarity, birders can text friends, alert listservs, post sightings to Facebook rare-birds groups, and鈥攖he choice of many鈥攕ubmit observations to , a global online database.

At its most basic level, eBird documents bird sightings. A team at the created the platform in 2002, and it became widely used by birders within a few years. As of 2020, it has collected more than 860 million global bird observations from over 597,000 registered eBirders. By sheer numbers alone, eBird is one of the world鈥檚 largest citizen-science projects. It is now used to understand species distributions, population trends, migration pathways, and even habitat use.

鈥淚f used properly, it should be a tool to understand bird populations at scale in ways we never have before, and to apply that to conservation actions,鈥� Marshall Iliff, an eBird project leader, told me. Scientists use eBird鈥檚 open-access data to study 补苍诲听听补苍诲听to highlight the . The eBird team has also created conservation-oriented for hundreds of species, and eBird听data are听used to create听.

At least 120 million observations are submitted per year, many through the handy eBird app, a kind of Strava-Yelp-Pok茅mon Go hybrid for birders. The app doesn鈥檛 ID birds for you鈥擟ornell offers for that鈥攂ut instead provides an easy way to record and upload the birds you spot. To log sightings, you start听a checklist (similar to the way you鈥檇 start a run on a smartwatch) and the app automatically pulls your location via GPS. You can choose hot spots听near you, which generate lists of species you鈥檙e likely to see created from data submitted by users in those areas. The app tracks time and distance traveled while you 鈥渢ick鈥� species and numbers of birds seen and heard. It even lets you听keep an offline checklist,听so you aren鈥檛 inconvenienced without cell service. On the web platform, users can upload photos and audio recordings to beef up checklist documentation. Once submitted, the observations join on the platform at any given time.

The scope and accessibility of eBird make it a resource for birders and scientists alike. The majority of eBirders use the platform as a handy bird-logging tool. I study听birds for my Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico, and I also watch them recreationally. I use eBird almost daily for everything from tracking how far I walk while scanning treetops, to planning vacation birding spots, to scouting remote Andean field sites for my doctoral work. Anyone can review lists of species in hot spots like 听stretching听back decades, study maps of where birds are seen, analyze how frequently certain birds appear at different times of the year, and peruse photos and audio recordings from all over the globe.

Undeniably, eBird has changed birding culture, a quirky world already full of strong opinions. It brings birders together and allows for rapid information sharing.听It鈥檚听also created new鈥攁nd sometimes contentious鈥攅tiquette and social dynamics.

The closest thing to an official guide for birding etiquette is the American Birding Association鈥檚 , which emphasizes a few basic tenets that can be summarized as: Respect fellow birders, their diverse interests, and skill levels. Welcome and encourage beginners. Respect birds and other wildlife. Don鈥檛 trespass on private or restricted property. Be mindful of space and privacy when birding in groups. (Since the pandemic, a new set of guidelines on birding and social distancing has been added to the code, titled听)

Birders are typically friendly, both in person and online, with email exchanges often ending in well-wishes of 鈥淕ood birding!鈥� But a code of ethics is necessary because, as with any activity that can become competitive, birding has a dark side. Rivalry, animosity, and ego have long been hallmarks of the bird world. Even the famous naturalist John James Audubon to convince members of the English nobility to promote his work. Birders sometimes go to semi-desperate lengths to track down birds, and online platforms like eBird that rank birders and sightings, akin to athletes on leaderboards, can amplify competition.

Although eBird is primarily an observation tool and a scientific database, the site still allows users to size each other up: anyone can view rankings of the top eBirders in different hot spots, counties, states, and entire countries. You can even peruse听a list of the . These types of competitive lists have birthed trends like ,听in which听birders constantly compete to see who can spot听the most species in a year. In turn, such fads have spurred counterinitiatives, like the , which encourages birders to enjoy birds in local areas听rather than seeking them out in far-flung places. Local birding has , as many work from home and explore their own backyards.

If an eBird user makes their profile public, other eBirders can view their recently submitted checklists and photos. Essentially, this means that birders can keep tabs on one another. Last听October, when a friend was in Belize, I lived vicariously through his trip by peeking at his eBird checklists each day, and they brightened my mood amid听dropping fall temperatures in New Mexico. I鈥檝e also received unexpected text or Facebook messages from birders with quips like, 鈥淟ooks like you had an awesome day!鈥� after they saw checklists I submitted. These interactions shouldn鈥檛 be surprising, given the public nature of eBird data, but it occasionally strikes me as odd that people I don鈥檛 know听well can see exactly where I walked for eight hours and exactly how many Wilson鈥檚 warblers I counted while I did so.

The eBird database听also maintains a frequently updated alerts bulletin called the听. The RBA,听as many lovingly call it, pushes notifications to users so they can quickly find out who鈥檚 seeing what and where. The excitement of rare, sought-after species fuels cultures of chasing听and listing听that emphasize the prestige of finding rare birds and seeing more species than others.

Chasing rarities is certainly exciting鈥攍ike an ephemeral, high-stakes treasure hunt where the pot of gold has wings鈥攂ut the hobby can also turn into an obsession. I鈥檝e heard stories of constant 鈥渢witching,鈥� or compulsive bird chasing, nearly ending serious romantic relationships. For some, a reputation for finding rare birds becomes a noteworthy part of their identity. Last fall听I met a birder at a听,听a small patch of trees with a trickle of water, on the windswept plains of eastern New Mexico. He introduced himself to me by name, followed by, 鈥淵ou might recognize me from the Rare Bird Alert.鈥�

A thirst for finding rarities can also encourage behavior that goes against common courtesy. One eBird app reviewer, 鈥淣otta Realname,鈥� noted that after spotting an unusual bird for their locality, birders rang their doorbell, asking听to sit in their backyard so they could听see the bird. Notta Realname reported being 鈥渇lummoxed鈥� but welcomed the birders into their backyard anyway听and then became frustrated when the unexpected guests displayed 鈥渜uestionable鈥� ethics. Notta Realname turned away subsequent birders and then changed their privacy settings. All birders I know would agree: showing up at a stranger鈥檚 doorstep unannounced is bad form.

Because eBird is not a social-media site鈥攖here is no way to follow听friends or comment on sightings鈥攖hese types of interactions filter onto other platforms. Last fall听an 11-year-old friend and beginning birder ticked the wrong species of quail on her checklist, which made it look like a bird from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula had been听sighted in central New Mexico. Rather than wait for eBirders to flag the mistake respectfully, someone made fun of her in a Facebook birding group.

Occasionally, eBird itself is the site of bad behavior. Recently, a respected birder misidentified a common lazuli bunting for a more unusual species: a dickcissel, or 鈥淒ICK鈥� in , a sparrowlike bird of open grasslands听easily recognized by its 鈥渇latulent buzz鈥� calls. Several experienced birders tried correcting his mistake, but he stubbornly refused to change his ID, insisting the bird was simply 鈥渙dd-looking.鈥�

I had my own run-in with bad behavior on eBird last November. I鈥檇 gotten wind via the eBird听Rare Bird Alert that a vagrant woodcock had been spotted along the Rio Grande near Albuquerque, New Mexico, just 15 minutes from my house. American woodcocks are iconic little solitary shorebirds that live in forests and , and they鈥檙e rarely seen out west. Naturally, I had to chase this bird. At 7 A.M. on a Sunday, I found myself walking along the river, kicking up piles of dead leaves in an attempt to flush the woodcock.

After a few hours, I鈥檇 had no luck. As I headed back to my car, I passed a group of birders also searching for the woodcock. We chatted for a bit before a well-known birder鈥攖he one who misidentified the DICK鈥攔ecognized me. With a facetious smile, he asked, 鈥淗ow鈥檚 your goose ID going?鈥�

The other birders stared blankly while I brimmed with silent shock and anger. He was publicly mocking me鈥攁 week before, he鈥檇 emailed me about a misidentified Ross鈥檚 goose I posted on eBird. Embarrassed, I听quickly updated my observation. Our interaction should have ended there, but instead听he was now calling me out for my mistake鈥攇leefully鈥攊n front of others.

鈥淔ine,鈥� I said听curtly, before walking back to my car.

When I got home, I ranted to my significant other, who is used to hearing too much about birds. He thought I sounded more wound up than usual鈥攅Bird can sometimes do that to you.

In recent years, eBird has grown tremendously. Between 2019 and 2020 alone, observations submitted to the database increased by 24 percent. Some believe that the rise in new eBird users is associated with a dangerous level of data imprecision. Can the data be trustworthy if they come听from millions of observers who might not be able to correctly identify common backyard birds? As one well-known California birder has been known to say, 鈥淭he average birder is below average.鈥�

This is where data-vetting steps, like, come in. Each eBird reviewer听is a volunteer selected for their knowledge or experience in a state, region, or country. Reviewers act as quality filters and check observations for accuracy, detail, and validity. They may contact observers to request specific details about unusual sightings, point out misidentifications, or ask for justification about higher-than-expected numbers reported for a particular species. Some reviewers even go out of their way to coach users unfamiliar with eBird on how to use the database and app to enhance the quality of the information. This verification effort, in turn, makes eBird data more valuable to birders, citizen scientists, and professional scientists.

鈥淢y goal when reviewing is to make sure that an observation is documented well enough so that, in 100 years, someone who doesn鈥檛 know who the observer is can say, 鈥楾his is reasonable,鈥欌�� says Lauren Harter, an eBird reviewer of more than nine years for the Colorado River area.

Given their status, reviewers are privy to moments of birding vulnerability, such as when birders make identification mistakes. Errors are expected鈥攅ven the world鈥檚 best can confuse extremely similar-looking or . If an eBird reviewer catches an ID mistake, usually from a photo, they reach out to the eBird user, typically with a polite template email that starts with, 鈥淭hank you for being a part of eBird. To help make sure that eBird can be used for scientific research and conservation, volunteers like me follow up on unusual sightings as a part of the eBird data quality process.鈥� They鈥檒l then explain why the species is listed incorrectly and request that the user change the ID to the correct species.

This mutual respect between reviewers and birders tracks with offline birding etiquette, but sometimes interactions can turn to rudeness. The birder who made fun of me for my goose mistake, for example, was a New Mexico eBird reviewer, and one birder friend, after hearing the story, called the reviewer鈥檚 comment to me 鈥渨ay out of line.鈥�

The relationship between reviewers and observers can be tricky to navigate. Reviewers sometimes screen as many as several hundred sightings per month, and they certainly deal with their fair share of user mistakes. I became increasingly respectful of the work they do as I spoke to more reviewers for this story. But some believe that reviewers exercise their power unfairly鈥攆or example, by accepting rare sightings by birders with good reputations, even with scarce documentation鈥攁nd impose personal rules about how birding should be done in 鈥渢heir鈥� territory.

This culture of the right and wrong听way to do things听can apply to the eBird world at large. Last year听a friend birded at a popular eBird hot spot outside Raleigh, North Carolina, during a work trip. After submitting his checklist, he was contacted by a local eBirder who, in typical birder fashion, sent him overly detailed instructions听about how to walk around the lake. My friend, a birder of 34 years, felt like his freedom to explore had been violated. There was a right and wrong way to walk around a lake now? 鈥淚 was bemused that someone would want to exert control over how others experience a place,鈥� he told me. 鈥淭he idea that a hot spot has to be birded in a certain way and recorded in a certain way really takes the enjoyment out of visiting new places.鈥�

Despite the fact that eBird has become an almost unstoppable force, some birders have resisted the eBird tide. They see the platform鈥攁nd the 鈥淐ornell mafia,鈥澨齛s one birder put it鈥攁s supplanting traditional methods of birding that many still prefer. Observers who don鈥檛 use eBird still rely heavily on listservs or Facebook birding groups, but this can limit access to information.

鈥淚t makes you almost have to be an eBirder to keep track of this stuff anymore,鈥� says Gary Rosenberg, a professional bird-watching guide of more than 35 years. 鈥淚 call it eBorg,鈥� he says, referencing the Star Trek character who transforms people into drones through assimilation. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e not on eBird, you鈥檙e currently just sort of left out in the cold.鈥�

On the flip side, eBird has encouraged people who may not have birded previously to contribute sightings in a popular forum. This citizen-science participation aspect of the platform, coupled with movements like , are听important for creating a diverse and equitable outdoors community. Increased representation and environmental awareness are sorely needed, given . 鈥淎nything we can do to supercharge an interest in nature is a worthwhile goal unto itself,鈥� says eBird鈥檚 Iliff. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e going to have people who are willing to vote for climate change or preservation of public lands or endangered species, or really care about the world around us, without a level of public engagement.鈥�

For all its unexpected dynamics, eBird has succeeded in connecting birders and scientists in ways that weren鈥檛 possible before. Last fall, while browsing through images of the species I study for my Ph.D., the , I came across a photo of a bird that appeared to be wearing one of the to research their migration. The eBirder who posted the photo listed his email address publicly, so I reached out to see if he had others. He was friendly, 补苍诲听he happily sent more听my way. I flipped through them that night, amazed that a stranger鈥檚 photos might have unintended value for my research, and I wondered what other gems remained to be discovered on eBird.

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A few years ago, before I began a Ph.D. in ornithology, I studied nomadic parakeets in Ecuador. I planned to track them with GPS devices, but I didn鈥檛 know the birds鈥櫶齟xact weight. Weight might seem like a trivial detail, but it鈥檚 incredibly important when you need to put a small GPS tracker on one. Existing literature didn鈥檛 help much. Luckily, I found my answer at the in Quito, home to two specimens of the Golden-plumed parakeet. As I turned them over in my hands and read through their specimen labels, I was surprised to learn that both were collected near my study site, in the early nineties. The female weighed 22 grams more than I expected, and the male 32 grams more. Suddenly听I had more options for heavier tracking devices, opening up new possibilities for my research.听

Since then, I鈥檝e lost count of how many times, and in how many ways, museum听collections听have proven invaluable to me. Natural history museums are often described as 鈥渓ibraries of life,鈥� and each specimen, also known as a听voucher or study skin,听is an听indispensable听piece of the biological record. The more complete the library, the more we can hope to understand and protect.听

In (Viking,听$27), Kirk Wallace Johnson tells the true story of Edwin Rist, a听man who is wholly unaware of the value of scientific collections. The book opens in 2009 with Rist, a gifted听student the Royal College of Music, robbing London鈥檚 famous Tring听Natural History听Museum听in the dead of night. He hops a wall, breaks in through a window, and wheels a suitcase down a dark hallway to cases of historic bird specimens, some of which were collected by Darwin鈥檚 contemporary, . Rist targets some of the world鈥檚 rarest and flashiest birds; the 鈥渂lue chatterer鈥澨�(), 鈥淚ndian crow鈥澨�(), , and . He steals 299 precious skins that he sells to finance a new gold flute. The judge who oversaw the case called the heist a 鈥渘atural history disaster of world proportions.鈥澨�

To many, the crime is absurd: Why steal dead birds? The answer is that Rist has a passion greater than music; he is a world-renowned salmon flytier, trained in the classic Victorian practice听and resolute in his desire to revive the antiquated art. In Victorian days, fly-tying听manuals detailed intricate 鈥溾�� for catching salmon that called for the dazzling feathers of rare and endangered birds. But after the Victorian feather craze died down听and stricter laws passed, including the (CITES) and the , rare feathers became increasingly hard to procure. Yet, in the underground world of fly-tying, the art lives on. Zealous听flytiers and obsessed hobbyists go to incredible lengths鈥攕earching online fly-tying forums, scouring eBay, paying exorbitant amounts鈥攖o obtain the iridescent and brightly colored feathers of exotic birds.听

Rist once for legendary hookmaker Ronn Lucas鈥檚 website, 鈥淔ly-tying is not merely a hobby, it is an obsession we seem to devote a substantial part of our time to鈥�, examining feather structure, designing flies, and coming up with new techniques for getting exactly what we want out of a fly.鈥澨�

Wallace Johnson gives a detailed and accessible overview of the many worlds that collide in Rist鈥檚 theft: he describes Victorian 鈥渇eather fever,鈥� the quirky history of fly-tying and flytiers, early British ornithological collections, and Alfred Russel Wallace鈥檚 invaluable contributions to science through his journeys to South America and the Malay Archipelago. Understanding the lengths that early explorers went to obtain each specimen makes the theft feel even more visceral: Alfred Russel Wallace endured food rationing, swollen ankles, and disease to acquire each specimen. He once defended his painstaking efforts, describing each species as 鈥渢he individual letters which go to make up one of the volumes of our earth鈥檚 history; and, as a few lost letters make a sentence unintelligible, so the extinction of numerous forms of life which the progress of cultivation invariably entails will necessarily render obscure this valuable record of the past.鈥澨�

After Rist鈥檚 successful heist, he brings听the stolen birds back to his apartment, where he plucks the most colorful feathers from each study skin and cuts parts of each bird into small pieces for illegal online sales. As I read this, my stomach knotted in pain. Each bird听had been studied by scientists for decades, a priceless time stamp in the biological record; yet, when Rist finished with them, he tossed each skin into a cardboard box by his closet. More heartbreaking听still听was that he cut many of the tags off the听specimens, rendering them effectively useless without their locality, date, and identifying information.听

It鈥檚 hard to overstate the tragedy of destroying irreplaceable scientific objects. Natural-history collections are vital to our understanding of biodiversity, evolution, and environmental change, and they only grow more valuable with time. In the late 1960s, museums were critical to听between the pesticide DDT and eggshell thinning. This research convinced the U.S. government to ban DDT to protect declining populations of birds of prey. Last year听biologists used more than 1,300 bird skins to produce a in the U.S. manufacturing belt from the early听to mid 20th听century, filling a large gap in the historical record. At my own institution鈥攖he , which houses over four听million vouchered specimens from around the world鈥攔esearchers used historic vouchers听to as the reservoir for the deadly hantavirus, and they confirmed the virus鈥檚 presence in populations nearly 15 years prior to the 1993 outbreak.听It was only because deer mice had been archived in the museum dating back to 1979 that scientists were able to answer questions over one decade later that no one imagined would need answering, underscoring the importance of scientific collections.听

At the Museum of Southwestern Biology, our collection includes extinct species like the and , type specimens (the original specimen upon which a new species name and description is based), and rarities听that are hard to find anywhere else. The collection plays an integral role in courses; public outreach; and our team鈥檚 research on the evolutionary adaptations of birds to high-altitude environments, and how bird ranges might be affected by climate change. It鈥檚 impossible to predict what questions about environmental change, population genetics, or evolution we may want to ask 20 years from now; specimens provide important historic baselines, and new technologies will only increase the breadth of questions we can address using these samples, a point by leading scientists.听

One of Rist鈥檚 most tragic admissions is that he doesn鈥檛 understand why the Tring (or any museum) needs 鈥渟o many鈥� of each study skin; he admits he thinks they鈥檙e useless if they just sit in drawers. Similarly, one might ask: Why does a library need so many books? But听unlike a book, each specimen represents a singular, unique record in time. A King Bird-of-paradise collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858 has a much different value than one collected in 2018, because the information we can glean about genetics, evolution, and ecology corresponds to time and place. By robbing the Tring of something that can never be restored, Rist did truly irreparable damage to the biological record.听

Wallace Johnson succeeds in conveying the gravity of this natural-history 鈥渉eist of the century,鈥� and one of The Feather Thief鈥檚 greatest strengths is the excitement, horror, and amazement it evokes. It鈥檚 nonfiction that reads like fiction, with plenty of surprising moments beyond the crime and its aftermath. Wallace Johnson鈥檚 writing style is honest and reflective at times. In one nod to forgotten history, he emphasizes the critical role that early feminists played in bringing an end to feather fever: 鈥淚n an era when women were expected to remain at home and had yet to be granted the right to vote or own property, the abolition of the feather trade was ultimately their work.鈥�

The Feather Thief is a compelling blend of mystery, quirky salmon flytiers, and dogged natural-history enthusiasts, and it highlights the obsessive lengths that people will go to destroy鈥攁nd protect鈥攕ome of the world鈥檚 most valuable treasures. The book鈥檚 main drawback is that the suspenseful tone and diligent quest for answers isn鈥檛 matched by the rather abrupt ending, acknowledging that听the underground fly-tying world and illegal feather sales are still听flourishing.听Then again, perhaps the unfinished feeling is justified: How do you conclude a real-life mystery when many stolen specimens haven鈥檛 yet been recovered, and likely never will be?

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