The Conservation Series: Freedom

“What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.” - Mollie Beattie

Featured in this photo are feathers that are gathered during cleaning of ambassador enclosures. While these feathers would be shed by an animal in the wild and forgotten, the staff who care for the animal ambassadors often pick up and place the feathers in the vestibules of their enclosures. The feathers take on layers of significance; for an animal that is given sanctuary, they experience the loss of their freedom as a wild creature but gain the freedom to continue their lives. They exist in a space between; no longer who they were, they are something new and different. Though wild, they are no longer; though in sanctuary they are not tame. They are alone and unique in all the world.