The Fashion Cost of Bird Extinction
A national wildlife advocate warns Tacoma women that wearing feathered hats is fueling a $800 million annual agricultural crisis.
The story, cleaned up
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Women, don't wear bird feathers on your hats. This is the admonition given Tacoma women last night by President G. O. Shields of the League of American Sportsmen. He declared the beautiful wings and feathers on a woman's hat represent the destruction of the mother bird and the death by starvation of the young left in the nest. Mr. Shields urged the passage of strict laws in this state to preserve the native game before it is too late. Unless something is done and done quickly, he said, the game of the woods would soon be like the buffalo and become extinct. The annual loss of crops in the United States because of the killing of the birds that would eat the insects and worms that destroy crops is $800,000,000. The killing of birds that eat the cotton worms of the South alone has cost the cotton planters $40,000,000 a year. Every bird on a woman's hat costs many dollars in loss of crops to the country.
“Unless something is done and done quickly, the game of the woods would soon be like the buffalo and become extinct.”
Early 20th-century conservation efforts often combined moral appeal with economic impact. This movement eventually led to significant federal protections like the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, showing how local civic pressure could drive national policy shifts.
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