The Peculiar Truth about the Feather Thief

• June 24, 2009: In the sleepy town of Tring, located 30 miles northwest of London, a call went out to the police. Someone had broken into the local branch of the Natural History Museum. The place had been robbed overnight.

• Thieves had made off with the skins and feathers of 299 extremely rare birds.

• The police were perplexed: Why would anyone rob a dull, backwater museum of its exotic bird feathers? No one made ransom demands. Why would anyone steal them?

• Since it was established in 1899, the Tring branch of the Natural History Museum has housed a massive collection of zoological items, including taxidermy lions, zebras, tortoises, polar bears, giraffes, and countless birds of every kind.

• It began as a private collection of Lionel Walter Rothschild, Second Baron of the wealthy family dynasty. The museum was formerly his private residence, a large and elaborate brick Tudor-style house.

• In his day, the eccentric Rothschild hired hundreds of hunters and poachers around the world to bring him animals for his private museum. He fancied zebras, which he tried to domesticate into draft animals to pull his carriages. His property was also home to living creatures, including kangaroos.

• A substantial portion of Rothschild’s massive collection came via Alfred Russel Wallace, a scientist and explorer. His theory on natural selection was discovered at roughly the same time as that of Charles Darwin. They didn’t work together, however, and came to their conclusions independently of one another.

• The main reason Wallace’s evolution theory has never been as well known as Darwin’s - even though they’re very similar - is simply because Wallace was a reclusive eccentric not given to publicity.

• In the mid-1800s, Wallace spent eight years in Indonesia searching for the elusive Bird of Paradise. During his time in the jungle, he trapped all manner of exotic birds, which he sent back to England. Rothschild eventually obtained almost all of them and placed them in glass display cases.

• However, many more pelts and skins were hidden away in cabinets only accessible by museum personnel. The stolen bird feathers had been taken from those private cabinets. Only someone with that knowledge could have committed the crime.

• Another unusual aspect: only brightly-colored plumages were taken, meaning mostly male birds. Female bird feathers, which are traditionally duller in appearance, were left untouched.

• It had to be an inside job involving a Brit who worked for the museum, right? But police learned that wasn’t the case.

• Over one year later, a suspect was finally named. He wasn’t British. He wasn’t associated with the museum. He wasn’t a bird watcher.

• He was a 22-year-old American who studied flute at the London Royal Academy of Music. His name was Edwin Rist.

• Weeks prior to the crime, Rist cased the museum while pretending to be a photographer. That’s how he learned where the rare birds were stashed.

• Then, using simple burglary tools like a glass cutter, he broke into the museum during off-hours, jammed a suitcase full of feathers, and escaped undetected.

• What was his motive? Rist crafted and sold rare, exotic fishing lures.

• A subculture exists on the Internet of enthusiasts who pay thousands of dollars each for fishing lures designed in the original Victorian-Era style. Rist made money by painstakingly duplicating and selling those precise lures. The online sales were traced back to him, and he was arrested in his London flat with what remained of the stolen bird feathers.

• In the end, Edwin Rist never served prison time, however. The court took lenience on him because Rist suffered from Asperger’s syndrome.

• The eccentric thief stole from the eccentric Rothschild who purchased eccentric collectibles from an eccentric scientist.

• The Natural History Museum at Tring is still open to the public today.

• For more details, read The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson.