The bird lover who lived in prison

By Amal Hewavissenti

'You might find it totally strange to hear me admit that I had no fear whatsoever of death ever since I completed the sixth year of my life. I had no fear of death because I fundamentally lost all attachment to my life as I had lived a life of absolute misery through multiple atrocities ...'

"My whole life itself was a battle a struggle even though I had no passion for life. I have taken particular care not to discontinue any task which I have undertaken but to bring the particular project to perfection however much difficult it may prove to be ..."

"Often I stayed prepared to sacrifice even my own life to discharge my responsibilities maximally to mankind. Death has nearly touched me several times, yet it has drastically failed to stop me..."

"I never appealed for life - begged for my prosperity. Instead, I built my courage and strength of character to reject everything which thwart the progress of my service to human kind. I have never withdrawn any move forward and I will not ...."

This is a part of the letter written by Robert Franklin Stroud the "bird lover" or the "bird man" who was doomed to spend much of his lifetime as a prisoner. Robert Stroud displayed his unfailing courage, self confidence and determination as a researcher, an intellectual and a man of imagination.

When he died in 1963, he had lived more than half of his life in a number of prisons in America. All the people who had known him specially bird lovers, were extremely saddened by the news of the death of the ornithologist who suffered much under the exploitation by the jailers.

Robert Stroud was compelled to kill a man who had brutally tortured Stroud's girlfriend. This murder which he committed at the age of 19, immediately made him serve a prison sentence of 12 years.

Unfortunately, Robert Stroud underwent brutal harassment and exploitation at the hands of jailers as he rose against the jailers' conduct that was largely injurious to justice. The jailers were operating completely out of vindictiveness and were desperate for revenge against the bird lover and the scientist in prison.

Throughout the early period of his imprisonment, Stroud succeeded in mastering French language and he read all the books in the library belonging to the jail. He even taught mathematics to his fellow prisoners.

Even the mathematics teachers who were assigned to teach mathematics to prisoners were baffled by the teaching techniques possessed by Stroud who had attended school up to grade 3 only!

The love and kindness that he showed over a little bird which had fallen close to his cell gradually made him a bird lover - an ornithologist in a prison.

Moreover, he raised several canaries in prison and researched about life and diseases of birds amidst many intimidations, disturbances and harassment by the jailers.

Intensive research work carried out day and night enabled him to discover bird diseases, and forms of treatment which stood unknown to any scientist or any specialist on birds.

The book he wrote in prison about birds made him an ornithologist. His book and research in the prison earned him a chorus of praise from scientists because every achievement was made in a prison cell with no facilities and under great mental depression.

In the latter period of his imprisonment, Robert Stroud was detained in a prison cell on Alcatraz island near San Francisco. Meanwhile the jailers were provoked by his increasing fame and popularity as a bird researcher and the authorities flatly neglected the mass protests against the imprisonment of a great bird scientist. Stroud had to run the gauntlet of the jailers as he made exciting discoveries of the life and diseases of birds.

Robert Stroud had the expectation to carry out research on human diseases after his release from the jail. Yet, all his plans miscarried on the face of the jailers' intimidation and coercion.

Once Stroud said that the pages of his book were wet with blood and sweat.

His research were the product of harassment, disappointment, failure, success and dedication. He admitted that he had walked on numerous wrong paths before he arrived at correct conclusions. Yet "man's inhumanity to man" made all his efforts futile. Thus, the greatest contribution to mankind and animals (birds) were cancelled.

He died at the jail hospital of Springfield on November 22, 1963. This was the very year John F. Kennedy was gunned down by an assassin in the city of Dallas.