DEATH IN THE EVERGLADES chronicles the all too brief life and tragic death of Guy Bradley, the young, fiddle-playing warden who patrolled the vast Everglades, the Ten Thousand Islands and the Florida Keys. His job --- defending America's birds against the ruthless plume hunters who shot them in vast numbers to provide feathers to decorate women's hats. By the late 1800s, hunters were killing egrets and other plume birds at the rate of five million a year. Many species faced extinction. Out of this turmoil arose the Audubon Society, represented in South Florida by young Guy Bradley. Guy's story unfolds across an America where concern with the natural world was just beginning to come of age --- and Florida was just beginning to feel the leading edge of the expansion that would soon engulf the state. His story unfolds in many places: Palm Beach, Flamingo, Key West, New York City, Fort Myers, and the vast territory known today as Everglades National Park.

Reviews

"A lively account of one of the most dramatic episodes in South Florida history"

-Author Peter Matthiessen

"McIver rescues from obscurity a key chapter in the history of environmentalism… (and) evokes Bradley's tumultuous world, chronicles the pitched battle to save wild birds, and resurrects a true folk hero"

-Donna Seamon, Booklist

"This is a fascinating account of the Florida plume hunters, the devastation they wrought, and the slow, painful progress-exemplified bravely on the hunting grounds by Guy Bradley - of the bird protection movement that ultimately succeeded"

-Oliver H. Orr, Jr., Library of Congress

"A moving account of a raw frontier and a hero who lost his life trying to enforce the law"

-Paul George, historian, author, Tequesta

“Guy Bradley’s colorful life and violent death have always seemed the stuff of myth. He spent most of his short life in the swamps and marshes of Florida’s Everglades. As a youngster he consorted with rough backcountry characters, shooting egrets and other magnificent birds for the plume trade. As a man he jumped to the other side, serving as an Audubon warden in the early 1900s, defending the “plume birds against men he had once hunted with.

“In his new book, journalist Stuart B. McIver fleshes out Bradley, his circle of family and friends, and his antagonists as he traces the course of a curiously intertwined tragedy. Death in the Everglades is both compelling history and a heart-tugging drama.”

-Frank Graham, Jr., Audubon magazine

“While McIver faithfully tells the story of Bradley’s relatively short life, he also vividly renders that pioneer world of which Guy Bradley was a part. Guy’s father and older brother both served as “barefoot mailmen.” The family was also in charge of the Fort Lauderdale House of Refuge for a short time. And Guy tried his hand at several occupations before turning his attention to saving the rookeries of the Everglades.

“The recounting of the slaughter of millions of nesting birds and the destruction of the nurseries is sickening in hindsight. How could a fashion craze have such disastrous consequences? Yet today we have our own fashions—for waterfront property and gas-guzzling polluters among other things—that also wreak havoc on the environment and rob posterity.

“Rich in historical lore, Death in the Everglades provides a grim reminder of what we stand to lose when we ignore the planet’s other inhabitants in our quest for status. McIver has done justice to an important piece of Florida’s environment al history.”

-Pat MacEnulty, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“McIver writes about Florida’s past as if he were on the scene at the turn of the century, riding with sailors to Key West and trailing hunters and Bradley into the swamps, his imagination coloring the historical details. In addition to serving as a fine historical document, Death in the Everglades calls attention to the pattern of environmental destruction in Florida since the beginning of the last century. Perhaps this spotlight will improve efforts to protect and preserve the natural Florida that remains---precariously—in our care.”

-Trish Riley, Miami Herald

“McIver does an admirable job of using survivor interviews, old letters, reports, news accounts and legal documents to piece together Bradley’s tale…McIver’s book helps remind us that Glades once was so wild that armed men quaked with fear. Those days are long gone, no matter how many billion of dollars the government spends on restoration.

-Craig Patterson, St. Petersburg Times