Leo Boon said : =C2=93As far as I understand this correctly you take specim=
ens of
butterflies??
And you are talking of people harassing birds?=C2=94
That depends on the reason for the harassment and collection.
I cannot tell from your message where you live but you may live in the part
of the world where the taxonomy of your butterfly spcies is well understood=
.
In Alberta it is not. We have many species that are lumped currently
because nobody has had a chance to sort them out. I am worried about what
species we have because we CANNOT protect what we do not know and what
sufficient people do not care about. No butterfly species in North America
has ever been eliminated by collectors =C2=96 butterflies are eliminated he=
re by
habitat destruction. Alberta is a rapidly developing province. Birds can b=
e
relatively easily wiped out because of they do not reproduce in the great
numbers that butterflies do if their habitat is there. If we do not know
what we have and what habitats they are using we cannot protect them. I
hate like heqq to kill a butterfly but when there are scientists willing to
do the DNA and other taxonomic work on them I will supply them with the
samples they need to get our butterflies studied. I am very much against
trophy butterfly collecting.
I support owl surveys which use palyback to determine what owls we have and
to get some idea of their abundance if conducted prudently and not with
repeated harassment. I have provided the recordings for our provincial
surveys. The Burrowing Owls in our province have dropped sharply in the
last 15 or so years. I am with great caution and with lots of warnings on
the CD allowing Fish and Wildlife biologists and the Canadian Wildlife
Service to use the calls to monitor what we have left. In both cases I
trust the people involved in the project. Even though I had been encourage=
d
to do so by researchers involved I would not approach a Burrowing Owl
nesting site for a recording even though it was not in my collection. Just
did not want to think I was to blame if a nest was abandoned. The Canadian
Wildlife Service really needed a good call and there was a rehab bird which
could not be rereleased who was calling =C2=96 so my recording is of a capt=
ive
imprinted bird which was used for education purposes (in what people told m=
e
was a =C2=93quite=C2=94 barn =C2=96 but we all know what people=C2=92s defi=
nition of quiet is.
After I got the fans turned off, the lights shut off to quiet the ducks and
chickens somewhat and the refrigerator unpluged was finally got some short
clips which did not have barking dogs etc etc. in it)
If you drive your car to where you are recording on any warm day and go ove=
r
20 km/hr (about 12 mph) you are killing butterflies either on the grill or
windshield of your car or as they are smashed to the pavement by the stream
of air over the car. Here a couple hour trip on a warm day at highway
speeds and you kill more butterflies than I collect for study in a summer.
Bottom line: I support playback as a scientific tool (if used properly in =
a
well thought out project which minimizes impact on the birds) I support
banding if carried out responsibly as part of a well thought out project. =
I
support the collection of butterflies to determin their taxonomic status. =
I
do not support playback to tick off a bird on a list, I do not support
trophy butterfly collection.
Your are lucky if you live in a part of the world where you know enough
about the species which you have to properly protect them =C2=96 we do not.=
Huge
areas of this province have not even had access and are unstudied and it is
being rapidly developed. The whole NE corner of our province (an area
larger than several states) until the last 15 years had very recently had n=
o
road access except by ice roads in the winter and float plane. The access i=
s
still very limited but more is being developed every day by the energy
extraction industry and the forest industry.
Barb Beck
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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