Flamingo, John James Audubon

Susan Bell,
Chair of the Board
National Audubon Society

Dear Mrs. Bell,

I am an ordinary bird lover who recently visited the society’s museum in Audubon, Pennsylvania. I am also a longtime admirer of the society’s namesake, John James Audubon, one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

I am writing in response to news that the board is considering removing Audubon’s name from the title of your organization, as have several chapters, and that it has already taken major steps to distance itself from him.

Audubon, as you well know, has been accused of “racism.” In an exhibit at the museum, on my recent visit, his life was described as, in part, “despicable.”

I do not believe Audubon, who wrote so movingly of the virtues and nobility of the American Indians he met in the wilderness, was “racist.” Not at all. Even so, I would like to join with those requesting his name be erased and his legacy officially canceled.

Please remove his name and disassociate his great works from your  “non-profit” corporation. I only offer this suggestion because your organization has solicited advice.

The truth is, Audubon doesn’t belong anymore.

A quixotic genius and self-taught explorer who experienced poverty and other hardships in his project to render the birds of America, Audubon wasn’t impressed with the Puritanical zealotry of certain 19th-century abolitionists. He would have even more so, I strongly believe, disavowed the fanatical Puritans of today, the zealots, killjoys and thought cops who rule “non-profit” corporations such as yours and who are imposing a variety of political guilt trips on every visit to the woods, mountains or wetlands.

Certainly Audubon would not have approved of the society’s use of political buzzwords such as “equity, inclusion and diversity.” He knew almost anyone with two legs could walk into the backwoods and anyone with ears could listen to birdsong. He well knew that birds are universally accessible, the most “inclusive” of creatures.

He was also a family man to the end, through great sacrifice. He wouldn’t have approved of your perverse promotion of drag queens and “queers.” Audubon loved nature. He was not at war with it, except in minor practicalities. As for your organization’s political obsession with  “climate change,” there too he doesn’t belong. He fought with weather on his exhausting excursions to capture and view birds, not against it in a cosmic political project that just so happens to coincide with the totalitarian objectives of a world state, which he certainly would have abhorred, valuing freedom and the wilderness as he did.

Audubon was a self-made man — not a crybaby or a whiner. He worked against extraordinary odds. He wasn’t anything like the pseudo-scientific technocrats, political victimologists or social engineers the Audubon Society promotes today. Audubon wasn’t even, first and foremost, a scientist.

He brought incalculable joy and wonder to humanity. His dramatic prints of birds are even better than real birds, such is the mystery of true art. Please let him be. Let him fall into obscurity.

Let those of us who love birds and beauty, who are proud of all that Americans of the past did to expand the knowledge of birds, cherish Audubon’s works without any trace of guilt. No offense, but we don’t need you as we continue to hold his legacy close to our hearts. I don’t mean this as a personal attack, but your organization has become a boring, scolding, obscene, sex-mad, equality-addled, over-funded, ornithological super-nanny, a monstrous threat to any genuine love of nature. Please let him rest in peace.

Sincerely,

Laura Wood

— Comments —

Bruce Charlton writes:

Excellent letter!

Yes, we have long since reached the point when we ought to approve of such detachment of great persons of the past, from the corrupt institutional shells which purport to represent them in the present.

From my own previous field of science, I realize that the Royal Society of London (which is now, as seen by its funding, merely a branch of the UK civil service bureaucracy) is correct to erase great scientists of the past from its once-prestigious halls: they were real scientists, who strove to be completely honest in their work and such persons have been excluded from the Royal Society for many years now.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

You’re right, these organizations are shells of their former selves and are irretrievably corrupt.

Once they start publicly pushing sexual deviance and systematically dehumanizing people who inspired, funded and created the organization, there’s no going back. This is not about Audubon. It’s an attack on whites and our civilization. It’s naked racial hatred and envy.

Caryl Johnston writes:

Bravo!

I had no idea the rot had gone that far.

Zeno writes:

Great letter. Wow, I wasn’t aware that even activities like bird-watching weren’t safe from the tyranny of the current culture warriors! It is incredible how this “drag queen” thing has advanced, for no discernible reason except to irritate average people into hating exactly that kind of stuff.

I mean, the “drag queen show” was always a fringe activity. Even for so-called gay people, it was not all of them who were into that type of thing, perhaps even just a minority among them. Just like most average men do not usually frequent strip shows, but perhaps a minority of them.

But now, together with the whole “transgender” issue, it is being forced to 99% of the population. Even to bird-watchers now. And of course, to children. The infamous “Drag Queen Story Hour” started as a small local event in San Francisco. Now it takes place in thousands of libraries and schools, and even in U.S. military bases in Germany! How do you do that, unless it is some kind of CIA plot, with heavy government funding? It sure isn’t spontaneous.

Laura writes:

Thanks.

Drag queen story hours and the like were never organic phenomena. They’ve had serious funding behind them (not an endorsement of website) and, yes, one of the objectives is obviously to foment division and anger. We’ve been undergoing intense psychological warfare. Enslave people to sexual perversion and you have complete political control over them. The sexual revolution is ultimately about political control. The people behind this are driven to obliterate all that is good in the world so that they feel comfortable with their own bitter hatred of God. But that this revolution has all this funding behind it doesn’t mean the sponsors are only to blame. So many of those who run corporations and so-called “non-profits” accept all this radical social engineering because they themselves are morally compromised. They have lived unrepentant, sinful lives. They have, for one, fully embraced sexual immorality. They have embraced materialism.  They are now morally blind, staggering in the dark and utterly indifferent to — indeed they celebrate it — the attack on their own civilization.

You have to feel sorry for the confused young dragged into the gutters of transgenderism, drugs, racial envy and racial self-hatred. I am not fighting against these damaged souls, but for them.

Anyway, that this sick, sex cult has infested something as wholesome as birdwatching shows that everything good is being razed. We are left with no cultural support, with nothing but ourselves and God. And that is enough.

Janice G. writes:

This post really spoke to me as a bird-lover, myself! You deserve massive kudos for speaking the bold truth to an organization which, like so many others, abandoned it’s idea of spreading interesting and helpful information and replaced it with the wretched propaganda we have all, sadly, become accustomed to.

The Audubon Society, which I had always admired so much, is apparently not so interested anymore in fostering love of nature and Creation as it is in bringing in big money. Grant applications (better termed “begging letters”) of groups in these “public/private partnerships” reliably feature the buzz-word salads that hit all the most correct political notes, hoping to get the most generous funding from a very woke Government.

It’s a cash-for propaganda swap, sacrificing real information and edification, courtesy of we the taxpayers.

Integrity and true charity is gone and growing cold in this world. Cash and status are king instead of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Laura writes:

So true, thanks.

Just because an organization has a “non-profit” label doesn’t mean it isn’t driven by profit-making.

We’re all paying for the Audubon Society, whether we’re members or not, because of its tax breaks. But there’s no question, ordinary bird lovers give a great deal of money to the organization. With $153 million in revenue, birds are doing well.

Dianne writes:

What a disgusting video posted by Audobon Society. I had no idea their stance. Your letter was amazing.

A Grateful Reader writes:

What I learned about Audubon’s methods of drawing from death rather than from life — which required killing many subjects in order to compile their characteristics into a single painting — surprised and disappointed me. Other naturalists, such as J. F. Landsdowne, Roger Tory Peterson, and John Muir Laws, drew and painted from life as much as possible, and they never killed birds for their art or science. I believe that the vivid quality of their work reflects their attitude toward the life of their subjects.

Laura writes:

That’s an interesting point.

Yet another reason why the Audubon Society should not be the Audubon Society.

Please follow and like us: