Christmas is Also for the Birds!

Hunting Birds in December

In an era before strong conservation laws went into effect, wildlife were treated as inexhaustible and birds were hunted for sport, food and feathers to fashion hats. This practice led to massive bird killings, which contributed to the decline of species such as the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. In the early 1900s, America held festive but destructive Christmas “side hunts” where teams competed to shoot the most birds. However, in 1900 ornithologist Frank Chapman proposed an alternative: the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in 1900, which counted birds instead of killing them, sparking the long-running citizen science project that continues today. This shift from mass slaughter to conservation observation marked a pivotal moment in American wildlife awareness. The first bird count occurred on Christmas Day, 1900, with 27 birders in 25 locations from California to Canada who conducted and tallied the species they found instead of killing them. Their goal was to document the bird populations and health, while shifting the holiday focus from killing to observing nature and the birds in their habitats.