Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

† Scientists with the long-ago Division of Economic Ornithology used stomach contents as evidence in cases of birds accused of raiding farms, hunting stock, and commercial fishing operations. A 1936 U.S. Department of Agriculture report provides examples: eiders accused of decimating scallop beds, yellow-crowned night herons shot by froggers when in fact the birds had been eating crayfish, hunters killing marsh hawks because they thought they were preying on quail. In each case, the birds were exonerated by their stomach contents, a happy outcome for all except of course the individuals examined, who gave their stomachs that others might live. Maryland’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center housed a collection of thousands of glass jars of bird stomach contents, until pressing storage needs triggered a massive emesis into a Patuxent dumpster.