Flight Club: Is the Movement to Rename the Audubon Society for the Birds?
Birds Connect Seattle, formerly known as Seattle Audubon, is one of at least eight Audubon affiliates that changed its name to distance itself from slave owner John James Audubon. (David Ryder for The Free Press)
John James Audubon owned slaves. The famous conservation organization bearing his name is now riven over what to do about this history.
As Egyptian geese and an LAPD helicopter circle overhead, Chuck Almdale, a 76-year-old bird-watcher, skirts past a homeless camp. He stops on the banks of a sewage treatment pond filled with mallards, coots, and herons, and sets up a spotting scope.
With scattered trash and people sleeping in cars nearby, it isn’t quite National Geographic, but all this …
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