Aspects of bird valuation in Brandenburg-Prussia: Towards the significance of socio-economic conditions for biodiversity perception between the 16th and 20th century

Summary

This contribution aims to give insight into the perception of biodiversity in the past by looking at a historical case study. The study aims to illustrate how people in Brandenburg-Prussia perceived and valued birds between the sixteenth century and around 1930. It also aims to identify the driving forces of bird perception to find out about factors determining the perception of biodiversity. The historical information and evidence discussed in the case study comes mainly from research conducted on archival sources held in the former Prussian State Archive in Berlin. The archival sources reveal five aspects of bird perception: (1) Birds have been valued as nourishment or delicacy, as hunting objects and trading goods; (2) Grain-eating and crop-devastating birds have been feared as vermin. Birds of prey have been feared as a danger to game and livestock; (3) Insect-eating birds have been valued for being beneficial to agriculture; (4) Birds have been subject to anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric ethical considerations; and finally, (5) birds have been valued for their aesthetics. All five aspects will be illustrated by giving some historical examples in the three main sections. In the final section, hypotheses on the significance of the five aspects of bird perception will be discussed. The findings show that the perception of birds is strongly dependent on the level of nutrition of the majority of the population. When there was a shortage of grain and other agricultural produce in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, most bird species were predominantly valued as nourishment whereas grain-eating birds were feared as vermin in agriculture. It was only once nutrition of the people improved considerably in mid-nineteenth century, that other aspects of bird perception came to the fore. Aims to preserve insect-eating birds as beneficial animals were expressed and gradually realised. Apart from that, humane-ethical and later, bird-centred ethical considerations fostered bird conservationaims. Aesthetic arguments generally played a secondary role and became significant only in the twentieth century. The food shortage during World War I caused a set-back in conservation thinking and brought basic utilitarian aspects of bird perception to the fore again. Otherwise, the diversity of bird species was generally not an aspect worth discussing. Rather, people were aware of the changes in the abundance of song-birds in general and of certain bird species in particular. From my point of view, the perception of biodiversity follows the same driving forces that are relevant for the perception of birds.