Rodney Stotts's life could have ended behind bars, but he made a change. After a jail term in the early 2000s, he gave up the street life and focused on wildlife, one of his first loves.
Now Stotts is a conservationist and a master falconer, one of the few Black master falconers in the country. The change in his life comes down to a two-word mantra: look up.
He tells the full story in a new memoir, Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife. In a visit to the Exchange, Rodney talks about the rough start to his life in Washington, DC, and how he turned it around to enhance nature in a very urban environment.