The bander's grip

Jenny Isaacs
2021
Each year, long-distance migratory shorebirds such as the ESA-listed rufa Red Knot (Calidris canutas rufa), fly almost 20,000 miles along the Western Atlantic coast. They utilize a network of discontinuous stopover sites located in more than seventeen countries – what I call the "shorebird conservation archipelago." This dissertation describes the organization and steady expansion of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WSHRN) – a voluntary system of over one hundred protected
more » ... for shorebirds widely distributed across the Americas. To trace this network, I focus on shorebirds as charismatic "integrative biosentinels" that indicate the health of the global environment and cross-cultural collaboration for shorebird conservation. Using critical theory, archival research at WHSRN headquarters, ethnographic fieldwork, and participant observation embedded with state biologists on the Delaware Bay (WHSRN's flagship site), I argue that shorebird conservation is assembled and held together across space and scale using technology, as "repeating islands" of practice and protection in a sea of unprotected space. I conclude that shorebird conservation biopower is impressive in reach and scope, but managerial control over the environmental system is ultimately limited by its unruly, unpredictable elements.
doi:10.7282/t3-hnd7-3751 fatcat:gqbssg3erfeufdauywfd3dh7fy