Christian Cooper, who went viral last year in New York for having the police called on him while birdwatching in Central Park by a local white woman, Amy Cooper, has been picked up by National Geographic to host a new series about birds.
by Voice & Viewpoint Newswire
Christian Cooper, who went viral last year in New York for having the police called on him while birdwatching in Central Park by a local white woman, Amy Cooper, has been picked up by National Geographic to host a new series about birds. Amy Cooper, who was dubbed the “Central Park Karen” for the incident, called the police after Mr. Cooper offered her unleashed dog a treat and falsely accused him of threatening her. The incident brought about issues of racism and a national discussion on when it’s appropriate to call the cops on someone, especially Black Americans.
“Unfortunately we live in an era with things like Ahmaud Arbery, where black men are seen as targets,” Christian Cooper told CNN in 2021. “This woman thought she could exploit that to her advantage, and I wasn’t having it.”
Now, a year later, Mr. Cooper will be going viral for better reasons — he is the host of a new show, called Extraordinary Birder, that will be shown on the National Geographic Channel. Cooper told the New York Times that he was approached by National Geographic about a year and a half ago and when they proposed the idea of him hosting a show, he said he was “all in.” He was quoted as saying “I love spreading the gospel of birding,” in the Times interview.
Read on for a description of the upcoming show:
“EXTRAORDINARY BIRDER: Life-long birder Christian Cooper takes us into the wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds. Whether braving stormy seas in Alaska for puffins, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above.”
The channel has yet to announce a release date.
