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Paper short abstract:

Ornithology of extinction proposes quantitative observation and ecological mitigation. To enrich the narrative of ornithology, I propose to write “ornithographies”, or qualitative stories on the political struggles of birdlife in an all-too-human world, and an ecology centered around bird claims.

Paper long abstract:

Ornithologists has been showing for the past few decades that bird populations are dramatically diminishing. They have proposed several explanations for the extinction of birds: the mechanization of agriculture, disappearance of insects, loss of habitat, heat, microwaves… In ornithology, these different parameters are used to model the loss of birdlife, and often solutions proposed against extinction are ecological mitigations.

Taking a stance from multispecies studies and my own fieldwork, I propose that we complete the narrative by following the history of bird extinction in France. If we look at relation between humans and birds in the margins, we learn that past and present forms of agriculture and urban environments are porous: they are locales for multispecies negotiation. In contrast, recent centralization, capitalization, integration in the global economy was accompanied by policies foreclosing human environments, excluding birds, and hence birds started going extinct.

I argue that the narrative of bird extinction accepted in ornithology needs to recognize the profoundly political nature of birdlife. Discussing ornithology with field observation in the French countryside and city, I propose we shift the practice of bird observation and write “ornithography”: looking at birds qualitatively, as political agents with claims, in a political environment that has cut them from negotiations. I argue that if we are willing to shift our viewpoint, bird claims are transparent: that rather than proposing ecological mitigations, we should be struggling with them against a political power that considers them populations and variables rather than living beings we can negotiate with.