From: "Rich Peet" <>
>
> Bird feeders at state parks are now being discouraged here.
I bet the majority of members of this group do some bird feeding.
I feed generally only in the coldest months. The hawk incident was the
first time in 20 years of feeding here. There have been years I've not
done any feeding, and the bird population in our woods and fields is
less when I don't feed. Even though many of those species never come to
the feeder.
I also put up a bunch of nest boxes on my 17 acres. And leave dead trees
as snags when I can.
> But that does not mean that it in any way is similar to the issue of
> electronic playback.
>
> I am one of those tree hugger bambi followers and proud of it.
I'm a hard nosed pro ecologist with a lifetime of experience. I often
agree with the bambi bunch, but not always. I was a ecologist before the
craze started. I saw a lot of folks take a course or two in ecology and
declare themselves experts. Unfortunately, a lot of those undertrained
folks get into positions where they are in control. They regulate by
emotion, not science. There are times I don't even want to admit to
being a ecologist as it ties me to such folks.
> There is a differnce in playback for frogs compared to birds. Song
> differences may likely be the principal reason for many subspecies in
> birds but not in frogs. This makes at least getting the song right
> more important and getting the playback not at all preferred.
There are far less species of frogs to deal with. And they do not alter
their calls if replying to playback. I have less qualms about playback
for frogs. They do not defend large territories, more like just personal
space.
I fully understand the reasons not to use playback in many cases where
it is used. But I also think it's a error to just think it does not
happen. We should be talking about the how and why of playback. How to
do it with less disruption. I've been out with researchers using
playback on birds. Their methods were quite different than what's been
described. They wanted to imitate a normal sized bird, not a 20' high
one suddenly appearing as so many who use playback do. Think about it,
you are a male bird doing your thing, and suddenly a absolutely huge
rival appears on your territory. You are going to look pretty agitated,
as it's your duty to try and chase this monster off, but you are
thinking "I'm going to die, this thing will just crush me in one peck,
or swallow me whole". The researchers I was with took pains to imitate a
approaching bird of normal size. And they had the bird leave too. The
responses when done right are far less dramatic.
Note even doing it that way, the thought that you should be using a
local dialect should be followed. I'm not sure I agree with splitting
birds into species or even subspecies on call alone, but if you are
going to do that, then you will have to be sure you record only the
"approved call".
> That does not make it right for my local State to use playback to
> capture every found Northern Cricket frog in the last pond in the
> State for the purpose of cutting off toes for genetic testing.
> Especially when the only reason for the testing is to try to prove
> the frog is alien and really extinct from the state so no protection
> of the land is warrented. It may make sense if there were more than a
> couple dozen but this doesn't.
They only got the males, of course. They are edge of the large range of
this species. They belong. You could always come down and get a few
thousand out of some pond here to take up there to confound them. The
amount in the pond would hardly change as a result.
This brings me around to another pet peeve. Some of the most dangerous
folks to wildlife are Scientists. One only has to follow along behind a
group of herpetologists surveying a area to see what I mean. All the
spots that a snake or other herp might use for cover have been disturbed
or destroyed. And herp folks have this little rule that no matter what
research project it is, they have to place "voucher" specimens in a
museum somewhere. It's one of the things that my survey by audio
recording is helping to break. No bodies in bottles, but my survey audio
covers more distribution info for frogs than all the bodies in bottles
for Georgia. Even those that wish to declare it no good for not having
vouchers have a problem ignoring it all.
The history of this was that it used to be that the field folks were not
the scientists, but just collected specimens for scientists to examine.
But transportation is much easier now, it's not hard for a scientist to
personally be out in the field. The reasons for all this specimen
collection are greatly reduced.
If you follow scientist's advice on some rare animal or area, it gets
cut off for the public on their advice, but they have free access. I
know one very bad effect of this from talking to many non-scientists.
They say why should their tax money be supporting a private playground
for scientists? And they are right. Put things off where the public has
no chance of interacting with them, and soon they have no importance to
the public. Eventually this leads to removing the protection, making
things even worse than before.
We need to get over this idea that science is somehow always ok and the
highest endeavor around. It's not, much of science will not help the
survival of species at all. Scientists have all the foibles and blind
spots of everybody else.
Walt
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