The mere mention of some people's names brings a smile to my face. Christian Cooper's brings several. "My name is Christian Cooper, and I am a birder," is how he opens his National Geographic series "Extraordinary Birder.
" I've done some "lite" birdwatching in my time but still didn't expect Cooper's ornithological tours to be so addictive. He's a great explainer who brings warmth and humor to deeply scientific subjects. And he has that gorgeous National Geographic photography to back him up.
But it was a very different and ugly circumstance in 2020 that first delivered fame to this former Marvel Comics editor. Cooper was birding in a wild corner of New York's Central Park when he came upon a woman whose dog was not on its leash, as the law requires. When he asked her to leash the dog, she threatened to call the police on him.
You see, Cooper is Black, and the woman, Amy Cooper (no relation), is white. "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life," Cooper said she told him. He said go ahead, and videoed her lifting her dog by the collar.
The New York City police arrived and quickly figured out what Amy was up to – trying to use a racial stereotype to exact revenge on someone who called her out for breaking a park rule. They called animal rescue, which briefly took the dog away. When the real story got out, Amy started getting death threats.
Christian urged people on social media to stop harassing her. Amy had issued an apology, which he accept.
