• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 3888 0

in 1903. Not only did plumers want to kill birds, but oil companies wanted to kill seals for heating fuel oil. William Finley began using the model law established by the Lacey Act as a means to prevent the killing of both birds and seals on offshore rocks. Confident, committed, and filled with an enormous sense of purpose, Finley organized the Oregon Audubon Society (today’s Portland Audubon Society) using the slogan “Woods, Water, and Wildlife,” at around the time of Roosevelt’s “great loop” tour of 1903. All Finley talked about with T.R. was Three Arch Rocks, off the Oregon shore: how the tides slapped and receded with eternal ferocity (just as Job had described a New Brunswick rookery in Wild Wings). Marine life, Finley told Roosevelt, occupied every niche and crevice of these rock mounds. At night, with waves crashing, small ghost crabs wandered about, looking like aliens from outer space. And murres congregated there as nowhere else in America. These unsurveyed Pacific mounds—located only 350 yards from the southern trip of a cape18—also teemed with tufted puffins and seals. The mounds ranged in height from 275 to 304 feet. These offshore rookeries were being patrolled, though only haphazardly, by “citizen bird” activists in the state.19

The activists in Oregon needed the White House to get involved and establish permanent federal protection. Feeling the burden of responsibility on his shoulders, Finley became a lobbyist. “Finley’s contribution to environmental awareness can be equated to that of only one other naturalist who was on the scene in the west during those early years,” Roger Tory Peterson wrote—“John Muir.”20 After the 1904 presidential election, Finley began sending Roosevelt private photos of the carnage among wildlife in his state. As the most noted Pacific coast wildlife photographer, Finley took seriously all living creatures that colonized the shore and outer rocks. He was, for the west coast, like Herbert K. Job and Frank M. Chapman combined—with constant help from his wife, Eileen, and Hermann Bohlman. Roosevelt was enraptured by Finley’s images. Whenever possible he talked about the Finleys and Bohlman.

Unfortunately for American environmental history, there are only superficial, potted biographies of Finley available. But we know that Finley took up Roosevelt’s invitation to visit the White House. The pictures Finley showed Roosevelt as an inducement for preservation were taken with a 5 by 7 plate camera and are stunning in their high artistic quality. Roosevelt was particularly riveted by the tufted puffins and seals (both favorites with the general public) at Three Arch Rocks. Wisely, Finley had left trunks full of more blurry images back in Oregon. Lobbying Roosevelt, Finley complained furiously that plumers were being allowed to operate along the bird-rich Pacific Coast. The Oregon Audubon Society was making headway in policing the area, but Three Arch Rocks needed federal protection—soon. Finley spread the photos on a wooden table and explained each one in detail; Roosevelt was nearly jumping with excitement. “Bully, bully,” he kept saying, “we’ll make a sanctuary out of Three Arch Rocks.”21

Its reasonable to assume that Finley left Washington, D.C. energized. Roosevelt had told him that the Biological Survey—when all the legal underbrush was cleared—would declare Three Arch Rocks a federal preserve. While it’s true that Finley grew impatient as months and then years went by, he nevertheless trusted Roosevelt to do the right thing. Three Arch Rocks was going to be just one piece in the Biological Survey’s coordinated preservationist strategy for the west coast. The reason for the delay regarding Three Arch Rocks was that the Roosevelt administration wanted to first pass anti-trespassing laws in Congress. Finley also had to tolerate a lot of ridicule from congressmen opposed to the idea of a federal bird reservation in Oregon—particularly oceanic bird rocks—a reservation that nobody except a few ornithologists would ever be allowed to visit. But Congressman Lacey, his hair now iron-gray,