Chapter 14: Killing Mr. Chapter 14: Killing Mr. BradleyBradley

Natalie Vander Kelen

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. BradleyGuy Bradley-main character in saving the plume

Killed in 1905 near his Everglades home

Guy grew up in a pioneer settlement near West Palm Beach

Plumes = birds that were killed for their feathers

Bradley became the lionized symbol of the slaughtered birds (plumes)

Walter Smith killed Guy Bradley by a gun shot to the chest while Bradley was on watch patrol

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. BradleyHunting and fishing guide of Cape Sable

Bradley was destined to be a plume hunter; the bradley family provided a living link between hunting as a vocation and/or as a pass time

Two-Gun George Johnson had his sights on shooting out a particular rookery for snowy egrets and Bradley’s friend Pinder ran and told about Two-Gun to try and save some of the rookery

1891, Florida outlawed commercial hunting of plume birds but failed to create enforcement provisions

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. BradleyEven though laws were passed in the state of Florida, the imports of plume (along with others) feathers could not be stopped

Their were numerous talks about the extinction of Florida birds and what we need to do but actions did not always follow

1902, Guy Bradley was appointed as an environmental warden..turning out to be one of the most inspirational

1913, Federal Tariff Act banned an import of the plume but that was after half of the birds were lost

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. BradleyDouglas (book writer) stated that even if individuals were caught hunting Plume that the punishments didn’t even occur and just a slap on the wrist did

Bradley watched over the county of Monroe and the sheriff’s department of Key West where areas of birds just swelled

In his district, Bradley educated those about plume hunting and its laws

Bradley died for defending the birds. Bradley was neighbors with Smith and Smith did not like that Bradley arrested his son

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. BradleySmith later shot Bradley on July 8, 1905 while at sea because of the arrest of Smith’s son; Smith was never charged with murder and the case was eventually dropped

Guy Bradley was the first death of the conservation movement

Tragedy eventually started to show up more and more, more wardens were being killed or mysteriously disappearing (Examples on pg. 193)

Killing Mr. BradleyKilling Mr. Bradley

In the decades that followed plume hunting and the burning of rookeries.. the vitality of the Everglades ecosystem came close to a point of collapse but because of Bradley’s thoughts and survival techniques, the Everglades restoration was possible

Today, scholarship was awared to those who show and exhibit extreme environmental concern like Guy Bradley