page_title: Plume hunting
section_title: Conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Plume hunting / Conservation
caption_attribution_description: English: Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge
context_page_description: Plume hunting is the hunting of wild birds to harvest their feathers, especially the more decorative plumes which were sold for use as ornamentation, such as aigrettes in millinery. The movement against the plume trade in the United Kingdom was led by Etta Lemon and other women and led to the establishment of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The plume trade was at its height in the late 19th and was brought to an end in the early 20th century.
  By the late 19th century, plume hunters had nearly wiped out the snowy egret population of the United States. Flamingoes, roseate spoonbills, great egrets and peafowl have also been targeted by plume hunters. The Empress of Germany's bird of paradise was also a popular target of plume hunters.
  Victorian era fashion included large hats with wide brims decorated in elaborate creations of silk flowers, ribbons, and exotic plumes. Hats sometimes included entire exotic birds that had been stuffed. Plumage often came from birds in the Florida everglades, some of which were nearly extinguished by overhunting. By 1899, early environmentalists such as Adeline Knapp were engaged in efforts to curtail the hunting for plumes.
context_section_description: In Florida, in an effort to control plume hunting, the American Ornithologists Union and the National Association of Audubon Societies (now the National Audubon Society) persuaded the Florida State Legislature to pass a model non-game bird protection law in 1901. These organizations then employed wardens to protect rookeries, in effect establishing colonial bird sanctuaries.
  Such public concern, combined with the conservation-minded President Theodore Roosevelt, led to his executive order of President on March 14, 1903, established Pelican Island as the first national wildlife refuge in the United States to protect egrets and other birds from extinction by plume hunters. This resulted in the initial federal land specifically set aside for a non-marketable form of wildlife (the brown pelican) when 3-acre (12,000 m²) Pelican Island was proclaimed a Federal Bird Reservation in 1903. Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is said to be the first bona fide "refuge". The first warden employed by the government at Pelican Island, Paul Kroegel, was an Audubon warden whose salary was $1 a month.  Plume hunter guide turned game warden Guy Bradley was shot and killed after confronting plume hunters.
  Following the modest trend begun with Pelican Island, many other islands and parcels of land and water were quickly dedicated for the protection of various species of colonial nesting birds that were being destroyed for their plumes and other feathers. Such refuge areas included Breton National Wildlife Refuge in Breton, Louisiana (1904), Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge in Passage Key, Florida (1905), Shell Keys National Wildlife Refuge in Shell Keys, Louisiana (1907), and Key West National Wildlife Refuge in Key West, Florida (1908).
caption: Pelican Island NWR
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