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  • Camera Hunter: George Shiras III and the Birth of Wildlife Photography by James H. McCommons
  • Joel Greenberg
James H. McCommons. Camera Hunter: George Shiras III and the Birth of Wildlife Photography. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Pp. 408. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Hardcover: $34.95.

George Shiras III is deserving of a biography and James McCommons has done a fine job of telling his story. I knew of Shiras for his efforts to help enact conservation legislation during the country's first great environmental movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. McCommon's title emphasizes another of Shiras's accomplishments, which was the advancement of wildlife photography as a way to draw people into an appreciation of animals without having to kill them. Both aspects and others are elaborated in detail as Shiras's life is explored.

Shiras was born into a wealthy family in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, (later becoming part of Pittsburgh) in 1859. His father, George Jr., was an attorney who served on the United States Supreme Court for eleven years. Hunting and fishing comprised an important activity for males in the Shiras clan. At the age of ten, Shiras III received his first gun so that he and his brother could shoot small game along the Ohio River. A year later, he partook in another family tradition by joining relatives on a trip to the pollution-free Northwoods near Marquette, Michigan, where they would spend part of the summer. There, they sought mostly brook trout in the pristine waters and deer in the adjacent forests. It was during those times in near-wilderness that Shiras III learned to appreciate and value nature, although he evidently never developed any affection for the likes of wolves and cougars or an understanding of why they too needed to be protected.

As the title suggests, a major theme of the book is Shiras's evolution as a wildlife photographer. One early attempt had him setting up his camera in the bow of a small, camouflaged boat while his assistant rowed as close to their cervine subject as possible. However, the nature of the camera proved inadequate to capture the image. Shiras bought a newer [End Page 131] type that functioned more smoothly, but the issue of distance remained. He then began attaching string to the camera, so he could release the shutter as he sat in his blind far enough way that the deer would be oblivious to his presence. Some of his most dramatic images were taken at night with a setup that involved exploding flash powder to illuminate the shocked subjects. Years later, in an article published in National Geographic (his favorite journal), he explained his growing preference for photography over killing: "every true sportsman will admit that the instant his noble quarry lies prone upon the earth, with the glaze of death upon the once lustrous eye … there comes the half definite feeling of repentance and sorrow … the time has come when it is not necessary to convert the wilderness into an untenanted and silent waste in order to enjoy the sport of successfully hunting birds and wild animals." (127) Fortunately, the author includes many of these photos.

Shiras III attended undergraduate school at Cornell rather than Yale because he did not want to study Greek (a requirement at the latter) but, following in his father's footsteps, received his law degree from Yale. He served in Congress for one term and became close confidants of the leading conservationists of the day. This included such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt, Gilbert Grosvenor (National Geographic Society), Edward Nelson (U.S. Biological Survey), Frank Chapman (American Museum of Natural History), and Gifford Pinchot (U.S. Forest Service). Shiras III drafted legislation, wrote pamphlets, authored reports, and lobbied unceasingly for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and other laws that anchor the federal effort at conservation. Indeed, this book is not just the history of one fascinating man but of the nation's first comprehensive attempt to preserve the biodiversity and sites that have so enriched future generations.

Joel Greenberg
The Field Museum
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
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