Christian Cooper on "Better Living Through Birding" & Birdwatching as a Queer Black Man 

Wow this was one of my favorite democracy now videos in a while. The genocide in Gaza was putting me in a dark place it’s definitely still important to be informed and fight to end it but to just get to hear about the joy of birdwatching was really refreshing

I find it so charming that Cooper's recollection of the awful day he was threatened in the park begins with a vivid, detailed description of the bird he was hoping to see that morning in the shrubs. He's clearly a man animated & defined by his passion for nature and birding. I hope we can all find something we're so passionate about.

Christian Cooper is so wholesome and charming and deserves all the happiness in the world. An Earth Angel.

He’s delightful, and his enthusiasm for wildlife and nature is contagious:)

Delightful person! ♥️♥️♥️✌️🇨🇦

What an elegant and gracious man.

Love this. This is the best of activism, arts and sciences. So happy that Christian Cooper can make a living off his lifelong passion. This makes the best of 2024 so far.

What a gorgeous human being ♥️🥹

WHAT VIBRANT LIFE! THIS GIVES ME HOPE!! Thanks Chris Cooper! Thanks Mother NATURE! Thanks Migration as an Organic and Natural and Ancestral Rhythm we all living beings have!

Was this the guy who was harassed by the karen with the dog she was choking in central park ? He didnt deserve it and now seeing his personality and intellect he is brilliant

Christian Cooper has got to be one of my favorite people. Absolutely LOVED this interview. A gem in every dimension...from his heart touching response to his assailant to his fantastic description of birding as existential therapy.

This guy seems so cool! Thanks for having him on the show!

Thank You for bringing Christian on the show. What a wonderful, and kind man. Watching Amy's behavior again, really brought back some emotion. I didnt know Christian wrote his memoir and hosted a show. I will definitely be interested in those.

excellent interview, Blessings to Christian Cooper . Congratulations & blessings on winning his Daytime Emmy

What a compassionate man!

Democracy Now! I love you! You make my life full of space and grace and beautiful faces. You make me so proud to be part of the human race! This guy - Christian Cooper - is SANE! His conscience is 100% tuned into “make a difference, don’t make another matching set of hurt episodes”. You folks make me so very happy! I’m so glad you came into my life!!!!!

rare wholesome democracy now story

Christian Cooper is delightful! Thank you, Amy and Christian. Fantastic visit. Big smile!

❤thanku Amy for hosting Christian Cooper. I really appreciate ur providing Cooper the time to share his perspective.

❤I LOVE YOUR DECISION❤

Christian Cooper is one dynamic man, a great speaker too. This is a delightful and informative interview, and I will definitely buy his new book.

Great Programme, thank you , enjoyed it a lot

Agree wholeheartedly with Mr Cooper; during our ltd time here, use it carefully & try not to waste your time 🤙

What an Inspiration you are! Thank you, thank you Christian. You rock!

Love this bird mans passion, heart and bird sounds. Hope he has a podcast soon.

AweSome ❤ News👍 .

Thank you having Chris on Democracy Now! Like many people ai first learned of Chris as a faceless victim of white terror. I didn’t know much about him until I saw the NatGeo show he hosted. Through that, I learned so much about birding and city ecology to protect birds. Everyone can and should care about bird preservation. And it was once again a reminder that no person who is a victim should be defined just by what happened to them, but who they are in totality. Chris Cooper has and will always be a brilliant, passionate person and that should be celebrated.

Thank you, Amy, for giving a full half-hour to Christian Cooper! His joyful enthusiasm for birding is infectious, but he also raises a lot of sobering points, like how the loss of Adelphi penguins in 2 years is a dramatic indicator of rapid climate change. I also appreciated hearing the rest of the story about Amy Cooper, and how he followed his conscience when asked by Cyrus Vance to press charges against her. And it was such a treat to see you smiling during an interview, Amy! A wonderful interview!

Well Done Mr. Cooper. Many blessings to you. Great strength, vision, and patience.

Thank you !

Well done Christian Thank you 🙏

My trans granddaughter recently joined her community’s birding community. And she turned me on to Cornell’s Merlin bird I’d app!

She knew she was being recorded but, didn't care. Lied anyway

As a queer autistic girl, birding is one of my favorite hobbies. Back in March, I had the chance to do some quality birding after getting surgery for appendicitis because it was one of the few outdoorsy activities I could do without having to worry about accidentally tearing my stitches. In particular, I enjoyed witnessing a tag team effort of two moorhens to keep a coot at bay (generally, I noticed that coots react very nastily to any moorhens in their vicinity) and how they seemed to be taunting the coot who was trying to harass them. Similarly, I loved watching coots feeding their chicks and a comical chase between a coot, two ducks and a Canadian goose.

This was an absolutely wonderful segment. Christian Cooper is beyond delightful. Of course I remember that altercation in Central Park when it happened. I remember her insane overreaction and felt like she was literally choking her dog to death and how sorry I felt for that dog. I love birds for the same reason he does. And I never know about his show, but I will be starting to watch it this evening after the insane Netanyahu visit. It will be an extra special treat because like him birds take me out of the moment. I live in a city with very little nature to escape to, except for a beach, but have been feeding the birds on my balcony for decades. They bring me and my three rescue cats great joy. I have no doubt they will enjoy this show as much as. Thank you for hosting this extraordinary human being who I wish was one of my personal friends. This was such a departure from the usual topics that are so unsettling and disturbing. Thank you for introducing me to this fabulous individual.

Such a great interview..thank you , Dem now! and... THANK YOU CHRISTION COOPER FOR BEING YOU

What an informative guest. Thank you for having him.

Inspiring interview, and human being.

I like this guy!

Thank you for your enthusiasm for nature, compassion and humanity Christian. I LOVE the sound of birds chirping. I love learning about birds in my neighborhood. Hoping I run into my bird watching neighbor again sometime soon. I will read your book AND try to watch your bird series on RU-vid. I wish you continued great health and success.🫶🏾🫶🏿✌🏿💥

Birding is an incredibly affirming & inspiring hobby for nature lovers!💓 You can do it anywhere and do not need binoculars per se, especially if you also use your ears. That said, your local public library today lends out musical instruments and also bird watching kits including guidebooks and binoculars. Treat yourselves to the wonder of your local birds this summer! 😎 🐦

I love this guy! I didn’t know Audubon was a slaveholder. Bird Alliance is a great new name. Will Mass Audubon consider a name change?

My favorite interview this outlet has ever produced! Thank you! ❤️

Congratulations Christian Cooper I loved the interview!

Thank you Christian Cooper. Thank you Amy and Nermeen. Please consider OLIGARCH Act.

This gentleman is so inspiring, great show!

What a great interview with a wonderful man ❤

Wow! This interview covered everything!

This brother is the definition of a good person 🕊️🌈💖

Without having read the book written by Cooper: if we all watch birds for 4 to 8 hours a day, the misery in us and around us will come to an end. Soon and forever. Audubon‘s book is on my shelf.

Is it wrong to note how hot this guy is?

Best program in weeks Engaging entertaining information sharing.

🐦 ❤

🎊 congratulations!

Rise Humanity rise. Rise up from all of the lies. Rise up to clarity, let go of old ideology. Humanity is one big family! What injures you injures me. It is time that we become free, and trust our own guide from within and begin; to heal Humanity as a whole, joining each other soul to soul. Namaste.

I love this!! What an amazing man.

I love the passion about birding as he explains listening and looking and focusing energy . Freedom of the bird. When I was young there was a plethora of species and qualities of birds moths and butterflies. Unfortunately I do not see that diversity or numbers today . Thank you for this wonderful show .

«Birdwatching as a queer black man»... VERY different than birdwarwatching as a white hetero man... VERY... ;-)

Great interview!

Love this man!!

I can understand why there is resistance to changing the name. "The Audubon Society" sounds so much classier than the "New York City Bird Alliance".

Great job

👏👏👏👏👏

This is so sweet 🥹

Awesome

Love this story

this man is a paragon and an exemplar

One second of this man talking, and you know he is a kind person. How could that lady have gone through with calling the police on this man.

That's the dude who dealt with the Karen at Central Park, right?

sounds about right....

Props to this gentleman

What a cool guy!! I love what he has created out of the terrible situation that introduced him to the world.

If we were to use this logic for every facet of society, we would have to CANCEL almost every figure in history.

Bravo, Christian ! You did the right thing - all these false accusations by nutty people -

I had no idea about the decline in bird populations! I think he could be really influential in teaching people about this

Human Beings have become so obsessed ( possessed) with their self created psychological Ego that any conversation with them about Reality turns into a war to the death. Understanding that Humans have become so neurotic you can't tell them to "obey" ( as a demand) the laws we all created....you should or can ask them questions like : Ma'm why don't you put your dog(s) on a leash so he ( the dog) doesn't accidentally go after one of our beautiful fellow birds and hurt it by mistake. You have to talk to people like you're talking to a "ten year old unstable spoiled Bratt"that will throw a temper tantrum ( people in high ranked positions act the same way ) , sincerely and with respect. ❤ P.S. the Psychological personality or Individual Ego is like the "INTRUDER" or evil Spirit( thing) that possesses the "original" good Spirit inside of each of us. Plotinus ( the ancient Greek wise man)❤ Meditation is an ancient form of Exorcism ....

“What then is man? … a being who continuously decides what he is: a being who equally harbors the potential to descend to the level of an animal or to ascend to the life of a saint … melted down to essentials …” Viktor Frankl, 1967 Psychoanalysis and Existentialism Page 112

Omg that poor dog 😢 i still get so sad watching that old video, not only that people like that still exist who treat POC that way, but who also treat their poor pets like that.. just yuck. So glad this wonderful man came out of the whole mess unscathed and is still doing so much for conservation ❤

He seems like such a sweet guy.

There are no birds any more in Palestine , Sudan Sumali , Congo

Mr. Cooper should have given her...the bird...

At university i found a lot of Amy Coopers. Most came from background whose parents were managers and administrators - as they let us know. Those were deep Karens.

Everybody is talking about bird watching, birdwatching, etc. None of these lazy, avoidant, feckless people don’t have the decency to our youth to fly a bat; or to FLY A BIRD. I bet y’all don’t even know how, it’s time to damn learn.

Feel pity on her pet dog.

Would love to meet him😊

It was common place for Slave Masters to take credit for their slave’s inventions and art because they considered themselves to have owner privilege. I would not be surprised if John Audubon stole his slaves art and presented it as his own. Wikipedia- John Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, 4/26/1785 - 1/27/1851) was a French-American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America.

The young generation needs to speak up to preserve wild areas to get them zoned as wild area to keep them out of Real Estate listinhe.

Cool guy!👍 ❤🐧🦜🐦🦢🦉🏳️‍🌈❤

They don't enforce those leash laws. Dogs can run around how they please

Indian Author Arundhati Roy has been arrested over a 14-year-old speech you interviewed him about. You should speak on this

Dear Mr Cooper, if by some miracle you saw this, and anyone else interested. We have lost across this earth, according to latest ecological science, 70% of all animal species on the surface in just the 70yr lifetime of my still living mother. Not through climate change though it has played a part, but through a different symptom, ecological collapse due to massive over consumption of raw resources. We have encroached upon this world sir, far beyond any ability for complex life to be sustained at the scales they were at when my mother was born. A solar panel, a wind turbine, won't fix that. Indeed it only makes matters worse. We have two major civilisation ending symptoms underway, not one. A) Ecological collapse from massive over consumption of raw resources to enable production for profit, doubling in consumption every 33yrs since capitalism's industrialisation post 1750 in order to maintain a 3% avg global GDP growth rate as too long under that and return on investments misses expectations, market sentiment sours, and recessions or worse do come. Capitalism demands a doubling in consumptions of energy and materials every 33yrs, or else the system will collapse. The ecological red line beyond which permanent ecological damage would result has been known for decades, we can take a maximum of 50 billion tons a year of materials from the surface, we blew past that red line by 1990 and today take 90 billion tons a year with capitalism demanding we take 150 billion tons a year by 2050. B) Climatological shifting to ever greater extremes as a direct result of ever increasing emissions from the ever growing piles of raw resources taken and produced into ever increasing goods and services in order to realise capitalism's demand for perpetual growth of profits in complete bloody defiance of the immutable physics governing a finite world. The climatological red line for Co2ppm levels beyond which the climate must alter to ever more extreme states according to the immutable laws of thermodynamics is 350ppm. We blew past that by 1998 and today are at 425ppm. Factor in the effects of other greenhouse gasses and it is an effective rate closer to 500ppm. Due to this additional carbon and other energy trapping gasses this planets energy equilibrium has been destroyed and is now gaining an energy equivalent of a 30 megaton nukes worth of energy... every 5 minutes... doubling in intensity every circa 33yrs, which has already forced the climate to a state not seen in at least 3 million years which is pre human, meaning this is not the version of earth you nor I was born on, that version has been deleted and we regressed to a climactic state earlier in the earths history to which we have no experience and little information as to its extremes as you can see from the circa 1 billion animals that were incinerated in Australia to the circa 1 billion sea creatures that boiled in the seas off the coast of Canada to Siberia being ablaze, to vast parts of nations including the USA being rendered uninhabitable without artificial means for long periods due to excessive heat, and much more all in the last few years, all accelerating with frequency and severity ever faster year over year as it is an exponential, not a linear trend. The problem my friend, is top down anti democratic globalised capitalism, and unless that ends, most complex life on the surface will be extinct within a century, including a billion or so humans, with the rest not far behind over the next century after that. If by 2030 nothing has changed on this earth systemically, then nothing we do, no technology, no magical engineering, will be able to allow capitalism to continue to outrun the immutable laws of physics on a finite enclosed world. Our bill is coming due, no matter what a leader or tree hugger may say to the contrary, it's all already in progress.

John James Audubon was the son of a French planter and a black Creole chambermaid, which makes him mixed-race. I don't understand why he isn't considered a person of color. I've noticed that people of mixed race aren't always counted as black. So, are we making a distinction between black people and mixed black people now? It's a new phenomenon, and I'm curious about what determines who is considered black and who is not, especially as a mixed-race person myself.

Mr. Cooper seems to be a good person, but he should have cooperated with the Cops in their prosecution, what she did could have cost him his life if a group of aggressive Cops had arrived on the scene. That lady who was walking her dog is a dangerous malicious person period.

( Nixon shock 1971) will happen again in 2024 😎 But this time you will not lose part of the value of your money, you will lose it all.

Brave man, Pitiful society Unrelated, but i really hated to have to like this video when the likes were resting comfortably at 420. Happy Friday yall

❤

Someone once told me that Audubon killed his bird subjects so they wouldn't be moving around while he was painting them. I've never found any corroborating evidence for this. Anybody?

He’s like a black Scooby(the RU-vidr not the cartoon character)

What ever happened to Amy's canine prisoner? That poor dog, my god. Does anyone know?

Why is his sexuality and skin color important when talking about bird watching?