On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 3:21 PM, David Adams<> wrote:
> At the Christmas Bird Count (an enormously big deal
> in the US) you would be lucky to have 10 people show up. That's a
> once-a-year event on an island with a population of about 875,000
> people. I guess of the 10% that are birders (87,500) - 874,990 were
> busy every year on that day.
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 3:28 AM, <> wrote:
>
> (And by the way, in the 2008 Christmas Bird Counts in Hawaii, 113 people went
> out into the field to count. In addition, there were many who just stayed
> home and watched their feeders who were not included in this number.)
I stand corrected. The two O'ahu counts had 20 and 21 participants (38
different people in all). So, only about 87,462 of Hawaii's invisible
birders stayed home those days ;-) (The CBC is run over the course of
a few weeks to cover as many locations as possible.)
If we're talking about "people that like wildlife" then, assuredly,
the numbers are probably dramatically higher than is assumed by
politicians and planners. Just north of here in Narooma there's a
beautiful boardwalk with cleaning tables and facilities for fishermen.
When we go there, we regularly see people "fish watching". It seems
like very single time we're there there are individuals, couples, and
parents+kids, grandparents+kids walking along looking for fish. It's a
lovely spot and you can see various rays, fish, and the occasional
seal. (Not to mention birds.) The people I'm describing don't have any
fishing gear - some bring binoculars. They seem like a pretty good
example of the kind of undiscovered interest people have in animals. A
nice boardwalk, a duck pond with a bench, a nature hide with something
to look at....all of these can be very popular with families and
people of all ages. If this level of interest is going underreported
and unappreciated by councils, then there's definitely something to be
said. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to believe that there are
some huge number of people that are willing to travel specifically for
the purpose of watching birds and animals that, for whatever
combination of reasons, have gone undetected until now.
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