 By the time he began work as a journalist, Chisholm already had a name as a conservationist.In 1907, aged seventeen, he joined the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union and during the next year wrote six articles in the organisation's journal, the "Emu".In the "Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser" he campaigned in 1908 against the killing of egrets for feathers for women's hats, a crusade in which he won support from Australian poet Dame Mary Gilmore.