It's interesting that Audubon displays an almost manic desire to catalog and record all the species of America's birds before they disappear due to rapid overdevelopment, which is an urgency that feels very present in today's world two hundred later. 

Going into this, I thought I would be reading about someone who adored nature and wanted to protect it. However, while reading this it seems like there was so much needless slaughter of animals. 

The way Indigenous and enslaved Black people are portrayed here leaves much to be desired. This story was an idealized, sanitized version of Audubon's life, and I feel that giving it this treatment does a disservice to readers. Instead, it would've been better to take a critical look at colonial attitudes (towards people and land) and how conservation has changed, acknowledging both topics instead of treating them as a footnote on Audubon's "quest to greatness".