The great white hope
The sacrifices endured by the little egret, which was exploited to virtual extinction for its dainty feathers, propelled the conservation movement that has benefited all birds, says Ian Morton
They were once persecuted for their feathers, but little egrets are now flourishing, says Ian Morton
Some aspects of the Victorian era are dark, uncelebrated and probably best forgotten. The fashion for white plumage across the mid 19th century is one such example and the little egret was at the centre of the business.
The bird had long been exploited to virtual extinction in this country and imports from the Continent were filling the gap. In the first quarter of 1885, it’s recorded that some 750,000 egret skins were sold in London for use in millinery. Two years later, a dealer in the capital is said to have sold two million.
So great was the demand that egret farms were established, from which choice feathers, dubbed osprey plumes, could be plucked from living birds. It had to be stopped. enter emily Williamson, 69, of Didsbury, manchester. Appalled by the exploitation of egrets and other fine feathered species, she formed the Plumage League in 1889 to dissuade ladies from indulging in feathered hats.
Soon, her campaign joined Fur, Fin and Feather Folk—another conscience-driven group, formed in Croydon by 36-year-old eliza Phillips—and, together, they established the Society for the Preservation of Birds. Their work was recognised by royal charter as early as 1904, but it was half a century before europe made egret protection official.
Today, the RSPB has a million members, more than 1,300 employees, 18,000 volunteers and runs more than 200 reserves—and little egrets are back in Britain. The birds returned cautiously as visitors after the 1950s conservation and, in 1996, were discovered breeding on Brownsea Island in Dorset.
Found in Poole and Chichester harbours, on South-west and east Anglian estuaries, on waterways in Wales and Ireland and on inland rivers, including the Thames and Severn, some 750 breeding pairs have now established in more than 70 colonies with at least 4,500 winter visitors. It took a while, but the little egret has outshone even the dainty avocet—the RSPB symbol, back after its wetland breeding areas were allowed to flood against invasion in the 1940s—as an example of avian recovery in Britain.
europe has some 22,700 breeding pairs and populations are stable or increasing. The little egret has even found its way across the Atlantic: birds previously ringed in Spain were discovered in 1954 on Graeme Hall Swamp on east Barbados and the species has spread through the Caribbean region and reached the Atlantic coast of America.
Allowed to roam unmolested, the little egret has proved remarkably resilient and its international status is of ‘least concern’.
However, the persecution of the little egret had spanned centuries. It was eaten to extinction in Britain. ‘egretys’ were among 15 bird breeds served at the Coronation of Henry VI on November 6, 1429. A two-day feast marked the enthronement, in September 1465, of edward IV’S Lord Chancellor, George Neville, as Archbishop of York and the menu included 1,000 egrets.
No noble table was complete without them and, by the time of Henry VIII, national supply was so depleted that the King’s ‘yeoman purveyor’, William Gowreley, had to send to France for the royal table, Calais being, usefully, in english hands at the time.
Restrictions on the taking of egrets were included in elizabethan legislation in 1564, but it was too late for the national population. In his 1586 chronicles, William Harrison noted that ‘as for egrets and such like, they are daily brought unto us from beyond the sea, as if all the foule of our countrie could not suffice to satisfy our delicate appetites’.
It wasn’t only exploitation that drove the egret from our shores, as wetland drainage had reduced food resources and sporadically bitter winters of the Little Ice Age had discouraged visitors. As Thomas Bewick noted in 1804, ‘no wonder this species has become nearly extinct in this country’,➢
The little egret has outshone even the avocet as an example of avian recovery
although historian Fred Stubbs, writing in 1910, recorded that the bird had remained on the price lists of London poulterers for 500 years from the 13th century onwards.
Fashion was the next major predator and it fell to imports to supply the two fine 6in white feathers from the rear crown, the 8in feathers from the upper breast and the recurved scapular plumes from the shoulders beloved of those profligate Victorian milliners and Belle Epoque garment designers.
Concern was becoming international and the horrified founders of the RSPB were not alone. In the 1890s, tea parties were held by Boston socialites Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna Hall to dissuade friends from following the trend. However, it was 1921 before the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act ended the ancient trade in the UK.
The Roaring Twenties witnessed a revival of feather boas and cloche hats, but naturally shed or clipped ostrich feathers and domestic breeds provided the necessaries. Chanel’s Paris supplier Lemarié, established in the 1880s, is said to ‘make a chicken feather look like it was plucked from a Bird of Paradise’.
Feathers have never retreated from the fashion frontline, from fascinators to extravagant catwalk displays. The late Alexander Mcqueen summed up their virtues as ‘colour, graphics, weightlessness and engineering’. However, there are rumblings that, even as a food by-product, feathers are an affront and should face the same opposition as fur.