File this one under Fascinating profiles of Extraordinary Women. In an excerpt from The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne, Chris Sweeney tells the story of how Roxie Laybourne, a bird expert at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, pioneered the field of forensic ornithology in the 1970s. Her unique skill—the ability to identify the type of bird from a fragment of a feather—was critical across a range of investigations during her time, from homicides to fatal airplane crashes. (Subscription required.)
In the months, years, and decades that followed that first bitter murder trial in Maine, Laybourne, who died in 2003, transformed her obscure niche into a truly consequential field of science. Her findings helped successfully prosecute murderers, poachers, and even a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, who tarred and feathered a civil rights activist. She investigated several more tragic airplane crashes caused by birds, working closely with the aviation industry and the Air Force to bird-proof their planes and develop new safety standards. And she trained a generation of proteges in forensic ornithology, forever changing our understanding of birds — and the feathers they leave behind.
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