Hello everyone
In reply to some recent criticism, I wish to clarify several points that
appear to have been misunderstood about my earlier note (6/1/02) regarding
the tragic loss of Little Terns that i believe was "contributed to" by bird
banding.
1. Violent hailstorms and other extreme weather events are often
associated with destructive winds. In these conditions a small bird
carrying leg flags is more vulnerable to severe buffeting compared to a non
banded individual. Commonsense tells me that a leg flagged/banded bird is
therefore greatly disadvantaged in its ability to maneuver in extreme
weather conditions therefore hindering its likely success to avoid harm and
find shelter.
2. I recognise and have no criticism of the obvious need to manage bird
habitats, using concerned volunteers and appropriate bird research and field
study methods as a tool for management. However i differentiate from this,
the largely unnecessary hobby like activity associated with most bird
banding projects. This includes catching, banding, flagging, bleeding and
otherwise handling etc. wild birds which on the available evidence is often
destructive to the very birds we desire to protect. I simply cannot see
that in most circumstances, bird banding contributes any additional results
that further justifies the need to manage or conserve our birds.
3. Re: bird banding projects that have been undertaken in recent years;
where are all the published works that have resulted from this amount of
activity? I am specifically referring to the published results from bird
banding studies that could partly justify it's impact; the publicly
available published results that would allow us to see that there has been
no unnecessary work or duplication. It is almost impossible to find
results that assist us to quote definitive statistics of where, when and how
many birds of what species have been banded and flagged to enable some
reasonable scrutiny of this activity.
For example, what published results show how many Red-necked Stints have
been leg banded and flagged in the past three years in Australia and
throughout the rest of the world. How were they marked, how many were
marked, where and when? How many of these Stints are still alive? Where
are they now?
I don't retract my comments about bird banding contributing towards the
Little Tern carnage that occurred on Christmas eve at Lake Tyers. A large
representation of the birds found killed were banded and we can only guess
how many were never found.
Marilyn
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