Bird-Watching While Black: A Wildlife Ecologist Shares His Tips | Short Film Showcase

J. Drew Lanham believes that “conserving birds and their habitat [is] a moral mission that needs the broadest and most diverse audience possible to be successful.” He’s a professor of wildlife ecology in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences at Clemson University in South Carolina, as well as a published poet, naturalist, hunter, and birder. He’s aware that this last specialty—birder—isn’t something people expect a black man to be, and after seeing what was going on in the news, he wrote “9 Rules for the BlackBirdwatcher,” a satirical essay adapted to film by BirdNote.