birding-aus

Re: Cannon netting of waders

To: "Andrew Geering" <>, "birding aus" <>
Subject: Re: Cannon netting of waders
From: "Philip A. Veerman" <>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 15:22:46 +1100
Hi David,
You wrote of "capture myopathy and drowning" as possible though rare terminal events in cannon netting of waders. I am (probably like you and most of us) not against the method, if the loss is minimal and the benefit in research or conservation is maximised. I'm sorry but I have no idea what you mean by "myopathy" in this context. As I think your contribution is useful, I would like to know what you mean.
The dictionary says myopathy is a "disorder of muscle tissue or muscles". As these are birds that have flown from the other end of the world and are very active in their daily feeding and roosting movements, I would think their muscles would be fairly healthy or at least not suffering muscular disorder.
 
How then does the netting procedure contribute to or cause myopathy? Also what does the statement "we won't fire a net if a flock is too large" have to do with this?
  
Philip 
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Geering <>
To: <>
Date: Sunday, 4 February 2001 9:35
Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] Cannon netting of waders

I feel compelled to enter the debate on cannon netting, to redress some factual errors.  Yes, fatalities do occur, but in the hands of an experienced team, nothing like 4%.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a bird decapitated.  Decapitation is generally a sign that the bird was too close to the net at the time of firing, and extreme caution is taken to ensure that this does not happen.  From my experience, the great majority of fatalities result from two causes: capture myopathy and drowning.  The Queensland Wader Study Group (QWSG) has taken measures to minimise both causes of death, and it is very rare for us to have a single fatality.  Certain species are more prone to capture myopathy, such as Bar-tailed Godwit and Great Knot, and we wont fire a net if a flock is too large.  Mesh size has been altered to minimise tangling of feathers, and thus reduce stress.  At the first sign of capture myopathy, birds are just released.  Handling is kept to a minimum.  Only in exceptional circumstances will a net be fired into water, and then only if the team is large and experienced.
 
I think you just have to open a copy of The Stilt to see some of the benefits of the work.  The leg-flagging program has been extremely successful.  For example, from leg-flag sightings, a large body of data has been collected in the last couple of years showing the link between breeding Bar-tailed Godwits in Alaska and wintering birds in Australia.
 
I think some of Tom Tarrant's veiled criticisms of the wader study groups are unwarranted (who else could he be speaking about?  No one else in Australia has a permit to cannon net waders).  The QWSG has not cannon netted for a couple of years, and is not likely to do so in the forseeable future.  However, the group has remained extremely active, doing such "boring" activities as running a monthly count program, lobbying to save roost sites such as those at Manly and Dux Creek, doing comprehensive surveys of the Great Sandy Straits (data used for Ramsar nomination) and the Gulf of Carpentaria, running workshops and monthly field id days, producing educational signs for sites such as Boondall and Karumba, participating in various environmental managment committees, and the list goes on and on.  The same can be said about the AWSG.  Two of our members have been on the AWSG excecutive, and they have literally spent hundreds of voluntary hours working towards habitat protection etc.  One has to look no further than page 1 of yesterdays Weekend Australian to see some of the results of the AWSG work.  Amanda Hodge cites AWSG data - the 90% decline in shorebirds in the Coorong.  Cannon netting is the highest profile activitiy of the wader study groups, as it makes good television viewing, but it is by no means their sole activity, nor even the most important priority.   
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