Cultural geographies of extinction: Animal culture among Scottish ospreys

Abstract

This paper explores cultural geographies of extinction. I trace the decline of the Scottish osprey during the 19th century and its enduring, haunting presence in the landscape today. Taking inspiration from the environmental humanities, extinction is framed as an event affecting losses that exceed comprehension in terms merely of biological species numbers and survival rates. Disavowing the “species thinking” of contemporary conservation bio‐politics, the osprey's extinction story pays attention to the worth of “animal cultures.” Drawing a hybrid conceptual framework from research in the environmental humanities, “speculative” ethology and more‐than‐human geographies, I champion an experimental attention to the cultural geographies of animals in terms of historically contingent, communally shared, spatial practices and attachments. In doing so, I propose non‐human cultural geographies as assemblages that matter, and which are fundamentally at stake in the face of extinction.

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