Note: This episode of Reader's Corner is guest hosted by Idaho Public Television's Marcia Franklin.
On May 25th, 2020, our guest today, Christian Cooper, set off for what he assumed would be a wonderful day of springtime bird watching in New York City’s Central Park. By that evening, he was being deluged with calls from reporters. And by the next day, his story had flown around the world.
Cooper, an avid birder who also happens to be Black, had asked a woman to leash her dog in an area of Central Park where that’s required to protect birds and habitat. The woman, who is white, not only refused, but then called the police and said that an African-American man was threatening her. While the two eventually parted ways, Cooper had recorded the conversation, and he and his sister posted it to social media, where it went viral. Prosecutors initially charged the woman, Amy Cooper -- who ironically shares the same last name as Christian -- with filing a false police report. But Christian refused to take part in the prosecution, and charges were eventually dropped after the woman took a course about racial bias.
While Amy Cooper faded into the woodwork, Christian Cooper went on to publish a best-selling memoir called Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. He also won a Daytime Emmy Award for hosting a National Geographic series called “Extraordinary Birder.” And he’s just published a children’s book titled Urban Owls.
Mr. Cooper will be the speaker at the “Idea of Nature” series at Boise State University on Thursday, April 17, 2025.
