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By John Trott
The Virginia Naturalist
near extinction for their magnificent plumes, called Airgrettes. These graceful plumes were in demand to adorn hats and hairdos in the late 19th and early 20th century.
These graceful birds nested in colonies in coastal swamps of the southeastern states from Virginia to Florida. Hunters waded in and slaughtered the adults by the hundreds, pulled out the plumes and shipped them to ready markets in northern cities. New York was, and still is, the center of the millinery trade. As tile egret population plunged downward, the value of plumes soared until by the 1920's theywere bringing in $32 an ounce.
Egrets, and other herons, only have the long, graceful aigretts during courtship and nesting, consequently hunting decimated the colonies for eggs rotted in nests and young starved.
A small, vocal and politically active group in New York state agitated to make it illegal to wear the feath
94.6%