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10 - Backlit Egret
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Great egrets (Ardea alba) are one of the most easily seen birds in the Everglades, yet also one of the most elegant. The thin, streaming white feathers, or aigrettes, suspended from the birds’ back garnished the hats of women throughout the United States and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These delicate feathers are used during the egrets’ mating displays and are only present during the mating season. In order to obtain feathers for the millinery industry hunters would lie in wait at rookeries and shoot the adults as they came in to feed their chicks. The result was not only the death of the adults but the death of the chicks due to starvation, effectively wiping out two generations of birds. Within a matter of decades the birds’ populations crashed and the value of the feathers skyrocketed, reaching nearly twice their weight in gold. The birds made a strong recovery due to the combination of legal efforts of a then fledgling Audubon Society and changing fashion styles.
Sweetwater Strand, Loop Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.
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