2 Counting Birds: Protecting European Avifauna and Habitats

This chapter sheds light on the environmental history of European bird politics and shifting human-animal relations in the long twentieth century by focusing on two overarching foci: the relations and interactions between human and non-human actors and between biology, geographies, and politics. The agency of migrating birds caused activities of ornithologists, preservationists, and policy-makers and both nourished and challenged ideas of European distinctiveness. Looking at the history of bird politics not only provides insights into the Europeanization of routines, practices, and regime-building that were shaped by natural dynamics as well as human made processes, but also reflects the fundamental changes that took place in European land management during the twentieth century.