The Feather Thief

[pittendrigh]

Get ready. This book will cause a bit of a stir.

I'm still reading it. Not finished yet but it's good. This guy can write.....an Iraq War combat vet and a fly fisherman. And it's about fly fishing and fly tying. And about real events, compete with suspense intrigue and action.

NY Times best seller. Not everybody is going to like it. There will be ruffled feathers.

So here is a question: is tying with Toucan and Cotinga any different than buying or using elephant ivory or rhino horn?

[roycestearns]

Sandy,
I don't believe Kirk was a veteran but founder of the List project, which tried to resettle Iraqi allies.

I admire the effort that Kirk went to, to find the "unlabled" study specimens.

After reading the book, I asked Kirk (author) questions that have not been answered. I've met/know most of those identified in the book, including the Rists and find many exaggerations. Blaming anyone/thing other then Edwin Rist, a twenty year old, very bright, spoiled college kid, is stretching the truth. There is no "Feather Underground", 90% plus of fly tying feather purchases are in the open, it was fly tyers that turned this in to authorities, and claims about the lost resource is questionable. I didn't like some of the attacks and innuendos directed towards certain individuals in the small world of classic atlantic fly tying.

The Rhino horn, Elephant Ivory, Shark fin issues are real, where as Cotinga and Toucan are not endangered and certainly not by fly tyers.

[pittendrigh]

Royce, I'm not taking sides. I'm enjoying the tale. He is a good writer. Exaggerator? Ah well. That's part of the game no? However, if there is no such thing as a feather underground (he does claim it) that goes beyond exaggeration. That would be a serious criticism.

I'm not a boxing or martial arts fan but for better or for worse i do enjoy a good fight every now and then. And i see one coming here. Big time. Perhaps even a doozy.

The author does claim PTSD issues plus injuries from ...... an IED? He claims something about broken ankles in the opening pages. Yes Cotingas and Toucans are a long way from endangered status but they are in decline.

I did spend two days with a birding guide in Belize a few years ago. When we saw a Cotinga Juan told me he works 6 days a week 9 months a year, at that point for 19 years. And that was the third time he had ever seen a Cotinga. Juan was so excited he could hardly contain himself. "Cotinga Cotinga Cotinga Continga Cotinga!" he whispered loudly while pointing with a visibly shaking arm and finger. Cotingas are more plentiful in Panama apparently. In Northern Central America, where they were once plentiful, they are now nearly extinct.

I have several classic Victorian Salmon Flies in my collection and value them highly. Royce your work is.....well it speaks for itself.

[bluesjay]

Hi Guys,

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=112960&p=798653#p798653

Jay Edwards

[two fish mitch]

if you think for one second only one person over at ftf knew what was going on you're a fool.

and the people claiming to be the ones 'hard done by' have absolutely nothing to do with it.
such is the culture over at ftf.

have a look for yourself.
anything close to the mark gets/was shut down. anything way off the mark stays.
again, don't take my word for it... look for yourself.

a great book with a bit of artistic license... but doesn't take away from the fact that anoraks defend/deflect their own.

the whole thing reads like a glass book and I found it all a bit of a anticlimax, considering.

apparently young mr. rist still feels it's the museum's fault for lack of security.
and I'm willing to bet there's a few 'online' salmon tyers that may agree.

cheers,
shawn

[pittendrigh]

I searched here in the book forum and found nothing so I jumped in head first. I missed the extensive Feather Thief thread already there in the Ephemera forum.

In most fights I know where I stand, with my hands up and my toes right on the line. But I'm not taking sides in this fight. I do admit to mixed feelings.

My eyesight has gone to hell. I have to read books on a pad device and it takes me five times longer to actually finish a book. I'll keep my mouth shut now. At least until I finish the book.

[bearbutt]

Blaming anyone/thing other then Edwin Rist, a twenty year old, very bright, spoiled college kid, is stretching the truth. There is no "Feather Underground", 90% plus of fly tying feather purchases are in the open, it was fly tyers that turned this in to authorities, and claims about the lost resource is questionable.

By your own speculative admission, 10% of the [exotic?] feather market is "underground"--which is a lot. Even the material sold in the open, like Jungle Cock sold abroad on eBay, is usually lacking proper certification to indicate its source. The Feds have larger issues facing them, so a lot of these transactions are not investigated--which doesn't make them OK.

We'll never know all of the reasons Rist stole the feathers--but in the end it comes down to supply and demand--and he also sold his materials to tiers who were happy to keep their mouths shut.

The birds that were stolen--299 of them--were part of a biological archive, where every bird is labeled as to where and when it was collected. While a small part of the archive, they were of a very narrow range of species, so the loss is not inconsiderable, as you claim it is. It's a real loss, because biological archives depend on the specificity of species, time, and place--you can't replace one bird with another bird to 'replace' the loss. And as Johnson notes, you also can't surmise the importance of the archive with current knowledge, because archives hold answers to questions that have not yet been asked.

It's a very good book. It has its faults (the emphasis on Risk's Asperger's defense is one of them, in my opinion)--but it exposes a crack in the world of tying that existed, and exists.

bb

[roycestearns]

BB - I never said the loss was inconsiderable. As of today, of the 299 specimans taken 62 are unaccounted for. Some of the accounted for skins had their labels removed, destroying the research value, so lets say we are talking about a loss/damage of 100 or even 150 of them. Those 100 skins were all males, meaning the female skins remain (Wallace collected thousands of pairs of birds) providing answers to many of the same time and location research questions. My only point is no specie/time/location specimen was completely wiped out of this single collection, so research resource is still available.

These specific stolen skins, were being sold in the open not on the so called "feather underground", and exactly the reason Edwin was turned in. An internet forum / ebay, is not an underground / black market. And, what was never considered in the book is the demand for these skins by natural history collectors.

Despite the excuses that were made in court, the reason they were stolen is pretty simple, the spoiled, entitled, kid thought he could make a quick buck to pay for a flute that his parents couldn't / wouldn't buy for him.

Bottom line, the writing is good, the act was deplorable, the Tring collection was damaged, a family fell apart, because of a boneheaded decision. Sensationalizing an internet forum, 100-300 classic atlantic salmon fly tyers (in the world), 5-6 material vendors, and an imaginary black market makes a good story, but also is unfair to many who were named or unnamed (but identified).

If you're interested in the collection here's a link to the Wallace collection http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/collec ... llace.html

[BP Green]

BB - I never said the loss was inconsiderable. As of today, of the 299 specimans taken 62 are unaccounted for. Some of the accounted for skins had their labels removed, destroying the research value, so lets say we are talking about a loss/damage of 100 or even 150 of them. Those 100 skins were all males, meaning the female skins remain (Wallace collected thousands of pairs of birds) providing answers to many of the same time and location research questions. My only point is no specie/time/location specimen was completely wiped out of this single collection, so research resource is still available.

These specific stolen skins, were being sold in the open not on the so called "feather underground", and exactly the reason Edwin was turned in. An internet forum / ebay, is not an underground / black market. And, what was never considered in the book is the demand for these skins by natural history collectors.

Despite the excuses that were made in court, the reason they were stolen is pretty simple, the spoiled, entitled, kid thought he could make a quick buck to pay for a flute that his parents couldn't / wouldn't buy for him.

Bottom line, the writing is good, the act was deplorable, the Tring collection was damaged, a family fell apart, because of a boneheaded decision. Sensationalizing an internet forum, 100-300 classic atlantic salmon fly tyers (in the world), 5-6 material vendors, and an imaginary black market makes a good story, but also is unfair to many who were named or unnamed (but identified).

If you're interested in the collection here's a link to the Wallace collection http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/collec ... llace.html

I stumbled on to this story here, and read the example segment from the book that was in the article someone linked. Seems like an interesting and fun read, think I'll buy the book.

Not sure what all the controversy is about, but on the face of it I totally agree with you Royce. Some entitlement minded kid wanted something he couldn't have. In order to get what he wanted he ripped off a museum. In doing so he stole from us all.

Seems pretty cut dried to me. Am I missing something?

[pittendrigh]

Re: Am i missing something?

......should Toucans and Cotingas be protected?

[BP Green]

Re: Am i missing something?

......should Toucans and Cotingas be protected?

Is that what all the dust up is about? If that's the case, I really don't know enough about it to weigh in so I'll just keep my trap shut...

[pittendrigh]

....should Toucans and Cotingas be protected?

That's the essence of the issue--as I see it. I do understand it's easier to ask difficult questions than to answer them.

For most of my life fly fishing and fly tying have been the (obsessed) focus of my life. But I'm old now and my favorite fishing holes are all so crowded I don't go much anymore. I spent more time chasing catfish and smallmouth bass (with fly rod) last year than trout. At least that I can still do mostly alone. Or with my chosen buddies.

And I have, late in life, become fascinated with birds. We're losing them fast. At current rates, just for one example of many, we will lose the Piping Plovers. Perhaps in less than a decade. The Red Knots won't be far behind.

Cotingas are free falling. Nobody really knows why but they are. I tie with roadkill all the time. And with chicken feathers. Life is weird. Human behavior isn't necessarily logical (is it ever?). I gave up hunting ducks a few years back but I still tie with duck feathers.

I would not have not and will not ever buy a Toucan feather. Even less so a Cotinga. But I'm not necessarily willing to foist that personal prohibition on my friends. Not yet anyway. We live in strange times.

[BP Green]

....should Toucans and Cotingas be protected?

That's the essence of the issue--as I see it. I do understand it's easier to ask difficult questions than to answer them.

For most of my life fly fishing and fly tying have been the (obsessed) focus of my life. But I'm old now and my favorite fishing holes are all so crowded I don't go much anymore. I spent more time chasing catfish and smallmouth bass (with fly rod) last year than trout. At least that I can still do mostly alone. Or with my chosen buddies.

And I have, late in life, become fascinated with birds. We're losing them fast. At current rates, just for one example of many, we will lose the Piping Plovers. Perhaps in less than a decade. The Red Knots won't be far behind.

Cotingas are free falling. Nobody really knows why but they are. I tie with roadkill all the time. And with chicken feathers. Life is weird. Human behavior isn't necessarily logical (is it ever?). I gave up hunting ducks a few years back but I still tie with duck feathers.

I would not have not and will not ever buy a Toucan feather. Even less so a Cotinga. But I'm not necessarily willing to foist that personal prohibition on my friends. Not yet anyway. We live in strange times.

I am also a bird lover. And in matters of wildlife conservation in general - or preservation of a particular species specifically - I tend to err on the side of caution.

But as a hunter I also know that often times the best thing you can do for wildlife conservation is support the harvesting of the particular animal - whatever it may be.

It sounds counter intuitive but the revenue generated from harvesting the individual animal goes right back into the conservation efforts of the group at large.

As I said before, I really don't know enough to have an informed opinion in this particular matter. But if that is the case with toucans or cotingas I would most certainly support their harvest. If that's not the case here, then I don't.

Bottom line is that whatever benefits the bird is whatever we should be doing. It's far more important than whether or not we can recreate a classic fly using authentic materials. Which I imagine is probably the concern.

We've lost far too much wildlife and habitat to continue making the same mistakes. As someone far smarter than me once said, they're simply not making this stuff anymore. . .

[roycestearns]

Sandy - careful ... tying with road kill can be against the law. Possession of a migratory native bird feather is against federal law. (federal migratory bird act 1918)

Birds naturally molt at least once and some species twice a year. The supply of exotic fly tying feathers for the classic atlantic salmon fly tying could be modeled after the Kori bustard feather program. Zoo's provide molted feathers to one of the feather vendors who distributes them for free and it took the supply side out of the market.

The hookbill/macaw, and softbill/toucan feathers are being supplied as molted feathers by the pet industry now.

Cotinga in free fall, where are those statistics? Either way, Cotinga has not been decimated by fly tyers and it's
indistinguishable from very available asian kingfisher.

The red ruffed fruit crow (IC) has always been in demand, and not easily subbed, however it's not in any danger and I'm sure if someone wanted to raise them and sell molted feathers the demand would drop pretty quickly.

[BP Green]

I ordered the hardcover from Amazon today. They give you access to the first couple chapters electronically when you order the paper copy.

All this other stuff aside and regardless of where you fall on all of this, the author is a very talented writer and really knows how to tell a tale. I especially enjoyed reading about the history of the stolen skins and how they came into possession of the museum in the first place.

If the rest of the book is as well written and entertaining as the opening chapters, it's sure to be a winner . .

[tiptop]

For a supposedly highly intelligent young man to steal the skins and then to immediately start openly selling them sure seems like a contradiction to me. The author's description of his personality and actions don't sound like Asperger's to me (or to the author). More like borderline sociopathic, narcissisitic behavior. He's extremely lucky he didn't get prison time.

And I wonder if the museum received any compensation from their insurance company. It'd be interesting to know how much.

[BP Green]

For a supposedly highly intelligent young man to steal the skins and then to immediately start openly selling them sure seems like a contradiction to me. The author's description of his personality and actions don't sound like Asperger's to me (or to the author). More like borderline sociopathic, narcissisitic behavior. He's extremely lucky he didn't get prison time.

And I wonder if the museum received any compensation from their insurance company. It'd be interesting to know how much.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one that thinks that. Had I been the judge at his trial, they would still be piping daylight to his cell...

[pittendrigh]

A week or so ago I said i'd keep my mouth shut until I finished the book. I just did. I'm poking a phone, on the road. I need to catch up on this thread yet--perhaps next week, when i get home.....I need to catch up on the other Feather Theif thread too, over in the ephemera forum?

I'll have more to say at some point. I need time to let this all sink in. I'm many things. I design and build boats and flies. And I write code. I used to write magazine articles. I do like to speak my mind. And I will at some point. I'm also a fighter. I don't back down. Ever. I'm with the Cotingas on this one.

[roycestearns]

Sandy, As you ponder, just remember this is about a single incident, one time in the 600 year written history of fly tying. Quantity of exotic birds are not being exported today for fly tying - if they were, the person (not to be named) would not have stolen these study skins. The current exotic feathers in the market for the most part have been in the market for years. One dealer is convinced that he has sold and re sold the same collections a number of times. The Cotingas are safe from fly tyers.

[pittendrigh]

I did need time to think about this. In a previous post I said something about "being a figher" and "never backing down." That was accurate perhaps but not a productive thing to say. I was poking a cell phone from an RV park in rural North East Montana. I'm home now. I've had a good night's sleep and my thoughts are clearer.

Many exotic tropical birds are in decline. Many are still prospering but many are endangered. Many are already on the brink of extinction.

Sharon Matola at the Belize zoo is emphatic. I read her book but I also spoke with her right there in Belize--at the zoo--where she keeps mostly injured birds and animals. Scarlet Macaws are vanishing as we speak--suffering from a combination of Mahogany logging and the world-wide live pet trade.

Costa Rica recently made the killing and trapping of all wild animals illegal. Something like 40% of their national economy revolves around eco-tourism and they (the Costa Rican Government) thought they needed to do something to protect it. If you talk to birding guides in Costa Rica they quickly become agitated if not irate, while talking about bird smuggling. These birds are so valuable it's almost impossible to stop the poaching.

Live birds destined for the pet trade fetch the most money but there is a lucrative trade in dead feathers too. The scarcer the feathers become the more the buyers want them and the more money they are willing to pay. Lovely Cotinga skins are on sale for $50 USA dollars apiece in one place I looked. On Ebay individual feathers sometimes sell for as much $10 and at least once that I saw for $20 apiece. Per feather!

Defenders of the exotic feather trade tend to marginalize the Feather Thief story by characterizing Edwin Rist as a spoiled rich child. Well yes. That he was and still is. But Rist had no trouble selling his stolen feathers for ridiculous amounts of money, to buyers who were eager not to ask any questions.

We heard from Royce (for whom I have enormous respect) "There is no feather underground. We buy from legitimate sources."

There is an underground however. You can go to Ebay right now, today, where you will find rare and sometimes endangered and sometimes even flat out illegal and forbidden feathers on sale, for sickeningly disfunctional amounts of money.

The laws are complex. I'm still studying what why and how some feathers are classified as they are. Lovely Cotinga feathers (and other Cotinga species) must be importable somehow because they are freely advertized (albeit at ridiculous prices). A more relevant question is "Should they be importable?"

Contingas are canopy birds hit hard by Mahogany logging. Trapping and skinning the last few that remain, so they can be sold for the Atlantic Salmon Fly market is little different that the fabulous sums Saudi Princes paid for the last few White Rhino horns.

These feathers will soon be gone. Using them now is--not a good thing. Fly tying is an important part of my life. When I'm too old to actually fish I'll still be able to tie flies. I've never used and never needed exotic topical bird feathers.

My eyes used to swell while my face smiled when I looked at Atlantic Salmon Flies--until a year or two ago when I first noticed Toucan and Continga in a recipe list. I now find myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable just looking at them.

That's what I have to say for now. I'm going to tie some Pike streamers. I just got back from an Eastern Montana lake with no one on it. That is filled with Pike.