Thank you for publishing this . I suggest you adopt the American Birding
Association principles of Birding Ethics 'in toto'.
3a. --------"It is important to feed birds continually during
harsh weather" is questionable in Australia, but as our human population
is so small cf. geographic size of the country, it is of no great
consequence to leave this as is. There is no reference to maintaining a
water supply 'during harsh weather.' However, I do not think this is of
sufficient importance to warrant change to the document. Australian fauna
has evolved over the millenia in conjunction with drought.
The U.S. of A. established Material Safety Data statements for thousands
of chemicals. Australia would not adopt these as as result of pressure by
vested interests in Australian chemical manufacturing. As a result we have
at a considerable cost to the nation , a set of Australian M.S.D.s.
Readers should also appreciate that scientific investigation of animal
life requires project approval by ethics committees and that the rigour of
honesty in reporting scientific data which must be reproducible by other
workers, requires as a corollary the highest level of ethics when working
with animals.
Mike Hines.
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