Great Crested Grebes, good news and bad news.

[chollop7--- via Canberrabirds <>]

Shorty, Thanks for bringing this up. A couple of my banding team (in reality just photographers) were abused by people last year at the bee-eaters nest at Casuarina Sands when they let the "photographers" know they were on the nest! Note also that I am not a photographer but do appreciate the great photos that are put up on various websites. I also help many photographers with identifying some of their images.

I suggest that the person to contact is the ACT Government's Environment Minister. I find it a bit hard to believe that nothing can be done to close off the area as after all, it is interfering with a protected native species and one that is not all that common locally. However, I would not hold your breath waiting for the Minister to do something/anything...............!!

Anyone dealing with any wildlife either professionally or as an amateur (like me [now long retired from CSIRO] as an active bird bander) for "citizen science" for want of a better description needs to have ethics approval to study any wildlife. Perhaps all photographers should have to go through this process or something similar (I can hear the howls of protests now!!) with stiff penalties for those who don't abide by the rules. I think most  photographers I know would be happy to do the right thing.

Just a thought!!

Mark

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From: Canberrabirds <> on behalf of shorty via Canberrabirds <>
Sent: Monday, 20 January 2025 2:18 PM
To: Canberra birds <>
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Great Crested Grebes, good news and bad news.

 

Hi All,

Last Wednesday the GCG's started building a nest at West Belconnen Pond and the small number of us birders that knew have been keeping it quiet in fear that what I call the Social Media Photographers ( SMP's ) would find out about it.

This group that I call SMP's are not birders and have no respect or care of the wellbeing of the birds that they photograph, in the past they have been known to set up chairs over Rainbow Bee-eaters nests to get shots of the adults with food for the young in the burrow just to get some photos, they have also been known to cut branches to get better shots of nesting birds.

On Sunday a Ranger visited the location and with dismay he noticed that someone has been trampling the reeds to get closer to the nest, this is environmental destruction and against the laws of wildlife harassment. Not being a Nature Reserve the Ranger has no power to block off the area. Perhaps someone would know who to contact to try and get this done?

Also if anyone is out there and see's one of these SMP's in the reeds take a photo and report them please.

Not my photo but supplied to me to post with permission taken from the opposite bank.

Shorty

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