Ken,
Agreed that it's always important to prioritise our actions.
But...
I cannot agree with your general approach/argument which seems to be based
largely along the lines... if we're not attacking fishermen why attack duck
shooters.
(It actually sounds reminiscent of some governments' attitude to Kyoto: "if
the biggest polluters aren't ratifying it why should we?". Personally I
don't buy it, but that's just me)
Analogies are good, but rarely tell the whole story, so let's leave examples
of harm to fish, prawns and rainforests out of it shall we.
In my opinion it all comes down to this:
Do the environmental costs of duck shooting (birds killed, ecosystems,
indirect impacts on tourism and the economy) outweigh the benefits of duck
shooting (well-being of the community of duck shooters, dollars generated by
the industry, tourism?)
If the costs outweigh the benefits then as a society we should put an end to
it.
>From my point of view I fail to see how the benefits could outweigh the
costs. So if the net impact of duck shooting on society is negative let's
end it!
Finally to indulge your want to examine fishing, I suspect that industry
supported by recreational fishing and the numbers of people involved
probably pushes the society net impact to the positive??
Just my 2 cents
Trent
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alkirna Tours
> Sent: Friday, 17 January 2003 13:00
> To:
> Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] Duck-shooting Again
>
>
> Hi Everybody
>
> I am glad to see that I provoked some comment and maybe even
> made people
> think a little about some conservation priorities.
>
> Just to clarify one point I was not suggesting there should
> be an open
> season for duck-shooting this year with the birds
> concentrated on the few
> wetlands that are holding on in the drought. I agree that it
> is totally
> reasonable and desirable that this year there be no open season on
> conservation grounds. I was making the point that it would be
> better for
> the ducks from a conservation perspective that there was not
> a drought and
> there was a duck-shooting season.
>
> As individuals we all need to think about conservation
> issues, operate on
> the facts, emotion and passion are vital ingredients but in
> the end our
> actions should be based on facts.
> When you build your house make sure there is no rainforest
> timber in its
> construction.
> When you had your prawns at Christmas potentially you were
> contributing to
> the deaths of many fish taken as bycatch and to the denuding
> of the bottom
> of the ocean by the repeated dragging across it of the trawl
> nets. If you
> had salmon you were contributing to a highly polluting
> industry that with
> very large quantities of fish concentrated in bays and inlets
> drastically
> overloads that area with nutrients. This causes destruction
> of the natural
> bottom life, toxic algal blooms and in some fish feedlotting
> operations the
> proliferation of silver gulls with the impact they cause on
> other bird species.
>
> It is easy to vilify and typecast a particular group
> especially if they are
> a minority and you may get a warm fuzzy feeling from doing
> this and yet if
> we open our eyes there are many ways that all of us can make
> a much more
> positive contribution to conservation if we make the effort.
>
> Karen Pearson in her reply stated that duck-shooting is a
> recreational
> activity, interestingly enough that is just how fishing is
> described so
> please show me how there is significant difference in a
> hunter shooting a
> duck to eat or a fisherman taking a fish to eat. Tag and
> release is another
> pursuit in fishing where the fish is tortured by being
> dragged through the
> water for the maximum time on the lightest possible line.
> Then has a barbed
> tag speared into its side then released to live or die. But
> of course we do
> not comment on that as there are too many fishermen in the
> community it is
> much easier to vilify a minority in this era of tolerance.
>
> I promise not to preach anymore on this topic in the short term.
>
> Regards
> Ken Grinter
>
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