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A quick perusal of our very own Alcatraz Island category yielded some interesting biographical facts about the world's most famous incarcerated ornithologist. Curiously enough, Robert Stroud was never allowed to own birds during his 17 years on Alcatraz. He made his reputation during the 30 years he previously spent at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. Robert Stroud was a career prisoner; he was sentenced to 12 years after he killed a bartender in 1909, then, seven years later, sentenced to life for killing a
prison guard. He was considered a dangerous inmate, capable of instigating violence at a moment's notice, and was kept in relative isolation. At Leavenworth, Stroud developed a keen interest in birds, and eventually housed up to 300 of them in two additional cells. Eventually he wrote two books on canaries and their diseases, and became something of a celebrity. But he became too famous for his own good; one dark and stormy night in 1942, he was transferred to Alcatraz. He spent 17 years on The Rock -- 6 years in segregation, and 11 years in the prison hospital. There he wrote his life story, which was subsequently turned into a popular movie starring Burt Lancaster, but he was never allowed to keep birds, and he was never allowed
to see the film. He died in the Medical Center for Federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, on November 21, 1963.
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