Interview with Mike Stark, author of “Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird” (University of Nebraska Press, 2025)

Mike Stark is the author of Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird (University of Nebraska Press, 2025). He is also the author of other books, including Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of America’s Lost Super Beast (Bison Books, 2022), and Wrecked in Yellowstone (Riverbend Publishing, 2016), as well as fiction. He has also worked as a journalist.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background as a journalist and author? 

I spent the first 15 or so years of my career as a reporter, mostly at newspapers in the West. I started out covering all kinds of news, including crime, local politics and all things local. While working on the Oregon coast, I started writing about the environment and wildlife, especially oceans and fisheries, and started looking more closely at our connection with nature. Later, I spent six years living in Wyoming and Montana where, among other things, I got to cover Yellowstone National Park: grizzly bears, wolves, geology, invasive species, microbes, history, tourists doing dumb things – never a shortage of topics to write about. I spent some time working for the Associated Press, too, covering all sorts of things but taking deeper dives into endangered species, public lands and environmental issues in the West.

After years in daily journalism, I knew I wanted to start tackling bigger, longer stories. My first nonfiction book was Wrecked in Yellowstone: Greed, Obsession and the Untold Story of Yellowstone’s Most Infamous Shipwreck (2016). It’s the story of a cantankerous businessman who came to the park in the late 1800s, assembled a giant ship on the shore of Yellowstone Lake and proceeded to irritate nearly everyone who came in contact with him before he was kicked out. It’s also a history of the first years of Yellowstone, back when it was largely unregulated and park officials were trying to decide how to handle a crush of tourists coming to a wild but fragile place.

Next up was a book about the biggest bears ever to live in North America. Giant short-faced bears existed here for a couple million years (no doubt scaring the hell out of the humans who arrived later) before winking out at the end of the Pleistocene. Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of America’s Lost Super Beast (2022) tells the story of who they were and why they vanished.

The following year, I had a novel published called The Derelict Light, which centers on a fire that destroyed an Oregon town in 1922, just as the city was beset with the Ku Klux Klan, Finnish socialists, the I.W.W., bootleggers and all manner of struggle and strife. It’s based on real events and is my stab at telling the story of what might’ve happened.

What sparked your interest in the history of starlings?

It actually started with a story I wrote years ago examining federal efforts to deal with invasive species and nuisance wildlife. As it turned out, starlings were one of the most targeted species every year. I was intrigued that, while agents put a lot of time and effort to keep them out of cities and agricultural operations, the birds never really seemed to go away. And then I started looking into the history of starlings in North America. It’s a fascinating saga of a few hundred being released in New York City’s Central Park in the late 1800s and then they just spread across the country like wildfire. Along the way, they ignited very strong reactions – though most of them were intensely negative. Almost as soon as starlings were invited in, we wanted them out. But by then, it was too late. And now they’re one of the most hated birds in America.

What are your thoughts on the relationship between humans and birds, generally?

For most of us, it tends to be fairly amiable. For the lightly curious, we put out bird seed, build wooden nests and comment when an interesting species comes along. Others invest in binoculars, a guide or two, perhaps a bird-themed calendar, and meet up with others to go look at birds. And what’s more wholesome than a communal experience to look at birds? Then, there’s a more fanatical, even competitive, gear that kicks in among select others who invest in cameras with really, really big lenses, travel to faraway places, and obsess over which birds they’ve seen and which they haven’t.

What other group of animals inspires such human behavior? Does anyone go rodent-watching? Birds are just special and weird and fascinating: flamingoes, hawks, hummingbirds, penguins, sage grouse and finches. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and dispositions. And most can fly, which I think we all envy.

Of course, along the way, certain birds are ignored or reviled, especially the most common. The pigeon, the starling, the occasional goose and sometimes the sparrow. We overlook them at our peril because each is pretty damned interesting.

I’m not sure how birds regard us and won’t venture a guess, except to imagine that we’re bigger fans of them than they are of us.

In this book, you write about how some people hated starlings, while others marveled at them. Why do you think starlings caused both reactions?

In many ways, Starlings is as much about people as it is birds. Our reactions to them are, in many ways, a reflection of us.

On the one hand, some people are able to appreciate their incredible feather patterns and giant, swirling flocks we call murmurations. We can marvel at their ability to mimic the songs of other birds or even the sounds of car alarms or the human voice. And it’s hard not to admire their stubborn skills of survival, no?

And yet, when starlings intrude on our lives too closely, especially in great, biblical numbers, we begin to object. They foul sidewalks and rooftops. Feast in orchards and devour cattle food. Crowd into suburban trees. Threaten air travel. Drive native birds out of their nests. Despite our best efforts to kill them or shoo them away, they persist. And perhaps remind us that not all of nature can be bent to our will.

The book’s description states that both artists and scientists have marveled at the birds. Do you think nature is a place where these two groups overlap, artists and scientists?  

Nature is art for any open mind. Look at a coral reef or tree bark or a fox pouncing over the snow in pursuit of a vole. In the starlings’ case, look at their iridescent feathers or their vast murmurations swooshing overhead. We tend to bifurcate art and science but they share some important characteristics: observation, wonder, expression and the exploration of mystery. Nature is certainly a forum where both come to life and can ultimately serve one another.

This is not the first animal-focused nonfiction book you have written. In 2022, you released Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of America's Lost Super Beast, which is about short-faced bears in North America during the Pleistocene. What do you think people can learn from the history of animals? What do you hope people will learn from the history of animals?

So much of our species’ history is intimately tangled with the history of the wildlife around us. Think of how important animals and plants have been to us over the millennia in terms of food, clothing, fuel, shelter, stories, culture, movement and migration. And it doesn’t get more intimate than, say, facing down a 10-foot bear during the Pleistocene and contemplating whether it might end your life or not. So it behooved us to understand the animals around us. How and where they lived. Who was dangerous and who was not. Which plants were edible. Who we should follow when the seasons changed.  

It’s only until very recently that we’ve disconnected ourselves from wild animals and insulated ourselves inside buildings, cars and cities. A lot of that not-so-ancient information might still be lurking in our DNA or collective unconscious but we tend not to tap into very often now. Culturally, some of it hangs on. Animals still show up in our art, on our calendars or as sports team mascots. Stuffed animals are still a thing, some kind of abstract expression of our connection with animals without the real-life consequences.

But as we’ve disconnected, the respect and value we’ve placed on wild animals has sharply fallen off. In turn, that’s given license to cruelty and disregard. Writ large, there are species all around us that are being pushed to the brink of extinction via ignorance, apathy or purpose. Far, far too many have already slipped into oblivion by our hand. So, untethering ourselves from the wild comes with some pretty profound consequences.

What do you hope your readers take away from this book?

I hope that anyone who is starling-curious or starling-furious will look at these birds a bit differently after reading Starlings. There’s a strange context around how they got here and why they’re never going away. These birds have a story tell and something to tell us about ourselves.

There are a few lessons too. Nature is complicated. Don’t underestimate the potential for unintended consequences if, say, you’re thinking of introducing a species where it’s never lived before. And sometimes even a bird (or other animal or person) that you might regard as a villain deserves a closer look. A little grace and a little knowledge go a long way.

What is the extinct animal you would most like to bring back? And do you have thoughts on bringing animals back–like the dire wolf recently, but people are also working on the wooly mammoth.

Rather than focusing on de-extinction and creating animals that aren’t really a true version of what they once were, I think we’d be much better served by working to save those who are threatened with extinction right now. That means vigorously protecting their habitat, halting their exploitation, slowing climate change, reducing pollution and tackling other threats to their existence. There are so many species – extant and still with a fighting chance at survival – that need our help. If we don’t step up, we could lose 1 million species in the coming decades, according to the United Nations, so we’ve got our work cut out for us.

But, all that aside, I’d really love to see a giant short-faced bear in person. I feel a little ripped off that they were gone before I got here.

You are also the creative director for the Center for Biological Diversity. What does that look like? How does the role influence you as a writer? 

A big part of my job is helping people understand what’s happening to the wildlife around us and how we can help. I work with an amazing community of scientists, lawyers and activists trying to preserve a wilder world, everything from bears and wolves to freshwater mussels and sea turtles. All of that seeps into my brain and helps me better understand that we’re all connected, people and nature, and our fate is ultimately tied to the fate of the wild around us. That informs a lot of what I write about and also leads me down all sorts of interesting rabbit holes. I’m a curious person so it keeps me going.

How and why did you become a good writer?

I’m not exactly sure. For me, writing and journalism has always been a license to explore ideas, places, things, people and histories. The pen and notebook open doors and give purpose to what might otherwise be just another obsessive interest. Writing a book means I can dig through archives, interview experts, go to places I wouldn’t otherwise go, collect boxes of documents, stay up late perusing obscure journals, and daydream and night-dream about my topic. And then I step into the writing and figure out how I’m going to stitch it all together into something compelling. It’s weirdly delightful. Except when it’s hard, which it often is.

Do you have books about nature or animals that you find yourself often recommending to people? What should I be reading? 

Oh geez, that’s a pretty impossible question and would inevitably lead to some horrific omissions. So perhaps I’ll take a coward’s way out and list five relevant books I’ve read recently or are on my to-read list: Wild New World by Dan Flores, Beloved Beasts by Michelle Nijhuis, The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare, We Loved it All by Lydia Millet, and Meet the Neighbors by Brandon Keim.

Interview conducted by Grace Mackey.