A late addition to this thread as I've had a busy week and only just
catching up on emails but I wanted to add a few thoughts on this
topic. (Note that these are meant as general comments and not
necessarily referring to the button-quail example which started off
this thread. I don't know enough about that example to comment on it.)
As a birding guide it is often tempting to keep the best locations
secret, however the way I look at it is like this... Guiding is much
more than just knowing what location to go to. People pay for a
complete birding experience - from the planning and logistics through
to the skill of actually finding the birds, the most up-to-date and
local knowledge, transport, education and discussion, and even the
refreshments which may be provided along the way. In other words,
paying for a guide can be a much easier and more effective way of
utilising limited time in an area that the client may not be familiar
with, than trying to do it all by themselves. Whenever I give
locations for my sightings in the public arena, I do so with a fair
amount of confidence that this will not result in a net reduction in
the work I get. In fact I believe that the extra promotion of the
area and its birds can only benefit the industry overall.
However, for obvious reasons there are a few cases where I don't
disclose an exact location in a public forum. These include private
property or other sites which aren't publicly accessible, and
breeding locations for rare species or species which might be
vulnerable to disturbance or poaching. This has nothing to do with
being a guide, but something that should apply to all birders (and
has been said many times before on this forum). Providing such
information for scientific or conservation purposes is a different
matter and I'm more than happy to do this. I believe such knowledge
is vitally important.
As an aside, may I add some comments on guiding. People who have
never worked as a guide might be tempted to think it's all fun and
easy! Believe me, despite its joys it's far from an easy way to make
a living. Any profit is eaten away by vehicle running costs,
insurance costs, licence fees and regulations, etc, and for each day
of guiding there's a large amount of unseen work in planning,
preparation, not to mention marketing and the ever-increasing red
tape. The necessity for early morning and late afternoon as the
optimum times for birding result in very long and tiring days, not to
mention night spotlighting as well. Then there's bad weather to
contend with, and the stress of "surefire" birds which suddenly fail
to appear. ("It was here yesterday" is no consolation to someone
who's paid good money for the experience!) Despite all this, when
things go well it's an immense joy and I feel truly privileged to
work doing what I love.
Sorry for straying somewhat from the original topic! I hope it
provides a little bit of understanding and tolerance or at least food
for thought.
Cheers
Carol
At 2:02 PM +1030 25/1/05, Tony Russell wrote:
Hi, my two bob's worth.
Alan's note raises some points for me.
Many's the time I've sought information on where to find certain birds
and found some operators very loathe to divulge the locations of their
local "specials". Whilst this can be frustrating I can also fully
understand a professional guide wanting to protect his/her product
knowledge in the same way as anyone else in business has to. However, I
wouldn't necessarily ascribe this rationale to Del's note.
I have also come across some non-guiding birders who just don't like
giving out information. Their attitude seems to be "find your own birds
!", which seems a bit miserable.
Personally I now give information freely to any birder (once they
establish their bona fides as a genuine birder). It saves me having to
take them around the place. But when I was doing a bit of guiding I was
a lot more cautious about giving away my information without being paid
for it. One could argue that such " nature" information should be in the
public domain and available to all for free - well, that's Ok for those
not trying to make a living , but if you are depending on the income
it's a different matter.
Tony Russell
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