‘A Catastrophic Theft From Humanity’: An Author’s Mission To Find Stolen Feathers
Author Kirk Johnson‘s new book “The Feather Thief” explores the 2009 theft of rare Victorian-era bird feathers from a British museum by American music student Edwin Rist, who was obsessed with using the feathers for exotic fishing lures.
Johnson (@KirkWJohnson) joins Here & Now‘s Robin Young to discuss the book and his own obsession with Rist’s story, which grew as Johnson tried to escape the pressures of his nonprofit The List Project.
“I felt an obligation to go out and try to hunt these missing birds down because a huge hole had been blown open in the scientific record,” he says. “That’s one thing that you have to understand: These birds hold answers to questions that scientists haven’t even thought to ask yet. And by stealing them, he has — in the words of the director of science for the British museum — this was a catastrophic theft from humanity.”
Interview Highlights
On hearing about the feather heist on a fishing trip
“While I was on a river, my guide in New Mexico mentioned this thing about a museum heist, and he told me that a young kid named Edwin Rist had just broken into the
