Podcast Summary: The American West – Ep. 12: John James Audubon and Vanishing America

Host: MeatEater (Dan Flores, Steven Rinella, Randall, Guest Expert)
Date: October 7, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores the life, legacy, and contradictions of John James Audubon—arguably America's most iconic naturalist, painter, and chronicler of wildlife. By tracing Audubon’s journey through a rapidly changing America—where expanding settlement caused immense destruction of nature—Dan Flores and his co-hosts examine Audubon's unique role as both witness and participant in the vanishing of the continent’s wildlife. The episode reflects on the challenges of natural history before modern conservation and highlights the lasting significance (and controversies) of Audubon’s work for understanding both the American West and our relationship with the natural world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Vanishing American Wilderness

• Setting the Scene: Thoreau’s Lament
  • Dan Flores recounts Henry David Thoreau’s 1857 journal entry, expressing grief over the loss of America’s original wildlife:
    • “When I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here—the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey—I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country.” (04:00)
    • The metaphor of attending a symphony missing its instruments or looking at a sky where familiar constellations were gone evokes the profound sense of loss (04:45).
• America's Biodiversity as a Shock to Old World Eyes
  • Early Europeans encountered astonishing creatures—hummingbirds, parrots, opossums, flying squirrels, massive herds of passenger pigeons and bison—often described as mythical before being confirmed (06:00–09:00).
  • Quote: “There are a thousand different kinds of birds and beasts of the forest which have never been known as neither in shape nor name, neither among the Latins, nor Greeks, nor any other nations of the world.” (09:41)

2. Audubon’s Origins and Personality

• A Life Steeped in Drama
  • Audubon—a striking, romantic figure, child of French and Caribbean origins—continually reinvented himself, sometimes embellishing his past for effect (11:00–13:00).
• Personal Contradictions
  • Charismatic, talented, and self-taught, but also “vain, jealous, and rarely generous,” according to Flores.
  • Audubon’s relationships with other naturalists—especially Alexander Wilson—were often competitive and marked by self-aggrandizement (see Quote, 55:00).

3. Audubon’s Work and Methods

• Birds of America—A Monumental Achievement
  • Audubon’s vision was to paint every American bird life-sized. “A comprehensive book that would portray every bird in the United States, life sized,” requiring both observation and the shooting of specimens (18:41).
  • The final 1839 opus boasted 435 plates covering 489 species—“the size of a small house window” at 30 by 40 inches. To fit, even the biggest birds struck unusual poses.
  • Recognized by Georges Cuvier as “the greatest monument ever erected by art to nature.” (27:40)
• The Ethics and Methods of Early Naturalists
  • Audubon—like all early naturalists—shot birds to prepare specimens for painting, wiring them into lifelike poses to capture fleeting colors (18:41–19:30).
  • Discussion of scale: “In Audubon’s time… to paint these birds is… pretty paltry. It’s small.” (45:23)
  • Collection had unintended consequences; excessive specimen gathering contributed to extinctions, e.g., the Carolina parakeet (44:44).

4. Witnessing Ecological Collapse

• Firsthand Accounts of Abundance and Loss
  • Vivid descriptions of now-vanished spectacles:
    • Passenger pigeon migrations: “A multisen­sory overload… a palpable wind against hair and skin… a river of birds running for three days.” (20:30–22:00)
    • The ivory-billed woodpecker: “Attired as if in a tuxedo… its passage reminded him of an Anthony Van Dyck painting.” (22:45)
  • Audubon’s chilling account of a wolf-killing, showing changing American attitudes (24:00–25:15).
• From Denial to Despair
  • “Audubon initially reacted like most Americans of his time: the great author of nature… would never allow something like extinction. Then… he came face to face with reality.” (26:30)
  • Audubon’s trip West late in life (1843) shocked him with both spectacular abundance and growing devastation:
    • “I cannot write anymore. My head is actually swimming with excitement.” (30:52)
    • Increasingly described himself as “a two-legged monster with a gun” and denounced the “senseless play” of mass buffalo slaughter (33:52).

5. Audubon’s Decline, Legacy, and Reappraisal

• Later Years and Death
  • Suffered from dementia toward the end of his life. “His noble mind is all in ruins.” (49:13)
• Contemporary Debate: The Irony of the Audubon Society
  • The guest expert and co-hosts discuss the irony that Audubon killed birds to paint them, yet is now honored by a major conservation group (43:36).
  • Historical collecting practices, though often damaging, now provide genetic material that may help save endangered species (47:26–48:26).
• Audubon as Both Record-Keeper and Storyteller—Flair and Fabrication
  • Audubon sometimes exaggerated his stories and encounters, such as his alleged meeting with Daniel Boone, which likely never happened (52:33–54:38).
  • Quote: “He was egotistical… He wasn’t beyond, I think, creating a story like that to… illustrate his presence in the world… when you read about the years when he’s in Europe, he claims to have met freaking everybody.” (53:30)
  • Fiercely competitive, even with fellow naturalists, which colored his historical reputation.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Thoreau’s Vision of Loss

• Dan Flores, quoting Thoreau (04:00–05:00):
  "I am that citizen whom I pity… When I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here… I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and… emasculated country…I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth."

On Audubon’s Legendary Status

• Dan Flores (13:00):
  “Audubon was the very definition of romantic charisma—a rough hewn New World Byron, a white Indian, as his own brother in law said of him.”

On Methods and Ethics

• Dan Flores (19:08):
  “To capture and paint the iridescent color shadings of a hummingbird’s wing, the bird had to be in hand. For the bird to be in hand, it had to be dead…[he] wired in lifelike poses and tried to render rapidly…before death glazed their eyes and dulled the vibrancy of their coloring.”

On the Impact of Audubon’s Art

• Dan Flores (27:30):
  “No less than famous Parisian naturalist Georges Cuvier called the Birds of America the greatest monument ever erected by art to nature.”

On Changing Attitudes

• Dan Flores (33:52):
  “He had now begun to refer to himself as…a two-legged monster with a gun. And now in the west, he soured on seeing animals die.”

On Abundance in the West

• Audubon diary, quoted by Flores (31:10):
  “We’ve seen many elks swimming the river. These animals are abundant beyond belief hereabouts…If ever there was a country where wolves are surpassingly abundant, it’s the one we are now in.”

Irony of Scientific Collecting

• Steven Rinella/Randall/Dan Flores (43:36–48:26):
  • Discusses how bird collecting was integral to early science, contributing to extinction in some cases, but current genetic studies from these specimens are now helping conservation efforts:
  • “Those specimens that were collected…are actually turning out to be really important for modern science and maybe even for…preserving endangered species today.” (47:26)

On Audubon’s Personality

• Guest Expert (53:30):
  “He was egotistical. And so he wasn’t beyond, I think, creating a story like that to…illustrate his…presence in the world…when you read about the years when he’s in Europe, he claims to have met freaking everybody, you know, everybody who was in Europe.”

Important Segment Timestamps

• Thoreau’s Reflection on Loss: 02:01–05:00
• Audubon’s Origins & Persona: 10:37–13:00
• Birds of America—Art & Ethics: 18:41–27:44
• Witnessing Wildlife Loss & Buffalo Slaughter: 31:00–34:00
• Discussion: Hummingbird Skins & Fashion, Overcollection: 40:32–43:42
• Naturalist Collection & Scientific Use Today: 43:44–48:26
• Audubon’s Decline and Reappraisal: 49:06–51:50
• Flair for the Dramatic and Self-Mythologizing: 52:33–57:25

Thematic Takeaways

• Audubon as Both a Symbol and a Complication: His legacy is both inspirational and morally ambiguous—a chronicler of a disappearing world who hastened its loss, yet left a priceless visual and written record of American wildlife at a crossroads.
• Changing Ethics of Nature Study: Early naturalists both preserved knowledge and pushed species toward extinction; their legacy serves as a caution for how science, culture, and conservation intersect.
• The Power of Story and Art: Audubon’s blend of vivid description, artistic skill, and mythmaking continues to shape how we understand and mythologize the American West—and the cost of its taming.

Further Listening

This episode offers a penetrating look at the roots of American natural history, conservation ethics, and the enduring complexity of its greatest chroniclers. For a deeper dive, explore other episodes in this series dedicated to the lives and legacies of the American West’s transformative figures.