At 20:21 02/04/2002 +0800, Marilyn Davis wrote:
Towards the end of our wader season, I often see recently leg flagged
waders but not too often are many older flags ever observed. What happens
to these leg flagged birds is of great concern. Of course there will be a
few lucky survivors; the banders regard these as significant retraps but
the question must be answered, where have the majority of flagged birds
from previous years gone?
I don't understand what you are getting at???? The material used for the
wader leg flags doesn't fade, so the old flags look the same as the new
flags. You need to catch the bird and read the band number to determine
the age of the bird. Maybe this is the cause of your incorrect assumption
that leg flagged birds don't survive????
Although their migration staging areas may not be known, during migration
Curlew Sandpipers use "mostly" coastal areas until they arrive in
Australia. There has been considerable disturbance and modification along
the East Asian flyway, but in percentage terms their coastal feeding
habitat is still largely intact.
I disagree. From the reports of overseas sightings of leg flagged birds,
many of these birds are sighted on marsh areas (or found on birds that have
been caught for food and sold at the markets). These may be near the
coast, but many are not on the coast. Curlew Sandpipers don't just feed
anywhere on the coast. The feeding sites tend to be the mouths of rivers,
etc. These areas also tend to be key areas for people. Japan has recently
reclaimed on important site. These areas are very far from being intact.
Besides the whole point of leg flagging is to find where the birds
stopover. The most significant Curlew Sandpiper sites have yet to be
identified. We don't even know where many spend their time in Australia
where hopefully there is far less pressure. That is why the sighting of
the bird in South Africa is so important. The possibility exists that the
missing birds from WA have headed to South Africa for the last year or two
due to the bad conditions at their normal WA sites.
There is an urgent need for an independent investigation into the adverse
impacts of bird banding, particularly "leg flagging" small waders. It
seems that the Banders won't do it themselves. If a truly independent and
thorough evaluation of these threatening processes were carried out, then
we might all feel a little more confident that these research projects are
not destroying the birds that we all want to protect.
The data is publicly available from the Australian Bird and Bat Banding
Scheme in Canberra. We look forward to your summary.
___________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Birding WA http://members.iinet.net.au/~foconnor
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email :
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