Greetings all,
I hate to have to be parochial, but to those denying there's a
Bustard problem....
whenever I travel any distance by road I have to pass through areas
where I used to see Bustards pretty regularly, but where I no longer
see them. Those who think the change in the Atlas methodology
may affect the reporting rate of Bustard may well be right and I
have no argument with them. But, it's an observable 'fact' that
Bustard numbers have declined in the Top End, NT. Without
rushing to put the bird on the endangered list I don't want to go the
other way either, and rationalise away their 'rarity' by saying that
methodology is the problem and that we can pretend they're as
common as ever. They're not!!
Clearly numbers have declined. I would welcome anyone that had
the time and resources to do a 'scientific' study of their abundance
up here but I doubt that will occur, for a number of reasons (after
all, I have many reasons that I can't do it myself, and I live quite
nearby).
It seems patently obvious to me that the reduction in records to the
extent shown in the Atlas, even given the different methodology,
should be ringing alarm bells. We ignore these alarm bells at the
birds' peril. We try to shut off the alarm at our OWN peril!
Happy birding
Niven
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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