-----Original Message-----
From:
Andrew Geering <>
To:
<>
Date:
Sunday, 4 February 2001 9:35
Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] Cannon
netting of waders
I feel compelled to enter the debate on cannon
netting, to redress some factual errors. Yes, fatalities do occur, but
in the hands of an experienced team, nothing like 4%. I can count on
one hand the number of times I have seen a bird decapitated.
Decapitation is generally a sign that the bird was too close to the net at
the time of firing, and extreme caution is taken to ensure that this does
not happen. From my experience, the great majority of fatalities
result from two causes: capture myopathy and drowning. The Queensland
Wader Study Group (QWSG) has taken measures to minimise both causes of
death, and it is very rare for us to have a single fatality. Certain
species are more prone to capture myopathy, such as Bar-tailed Godwit and
Great Knot, and we wont fire a net if a flock is too large. Mesh
size has been altered to minimise tangling of feathers, and thus
reduce stress. At the first sign of capture myopathy, birds are just
released. Handling is kept to a minimum. Only in exceptional
circumstances will a net be fired into water, and then only if the team is
large and experienced.
I think you just have to open a copy of The
Stilt to see some of the benefits of the work. The leg-flagging
program has been extremely successful. For example, from leg-flag
sightings, a large body of data has been collected in the last couple of
years showing the link between breeding Bar-tailed Godwits in Alaska and
wintering birds in Australia.
I think some of Tom Tarrant's veiled criticisms
of the wader study groups are unwarranted (who else could he be speaking
about? No one else in Australia has a permit to cannon net
waders). The QWSG has not cannon netted for a couple of years, and is
not likely to do so in the forseeable future. However, the group has
remained extremely active, doing such "boring" activities as
running a monthly count program, lobbying to save roost sites such as those
at Manly and Dux Creek, doing comprehensive surveys of the Great Sandy
Straits (data used for Ramsar nomination) and the Gulf of Carpentaria,
running workshops and monthly field id days, producing educational signs for
sites such as Boondall and Karumba, participating in various environmental
managment committees, and the list goes on and on. The same can be
said about the AWSG. Two of our members have been on
the AWSG excecutive, and they have literally spent hundreds of
voluntary hours working towards habitat protection etc. One has to
look no further than page 1 of yesterdays Weekend Australian
to see some of the results of the AWSG work. Amanda Hodge
cites AWSG data - the 90% decline in shorebirds in the Coorong. Cannon
netting is the highest profile activitiy of the wader study groups, as it
makes good television viewing, but it is by no means their sole activity,
nor even the most important priority.
