Hi Mick
I think they are some good safegaurds, but they are very resource
intensive, that is costly in time and money. Most good conservation work in
Australia is done by voluntary bodies and I don't think in terms of
conservation killing blackbirds would not provide a good return(sticking to
my economic language!)
Revegetation and weeding existing bushland would in my view provide much
better returns.
Bounties have a proven track record of failure. If something is valuable
people will ensure there is a supply of them. This was the brilliant idea
that John Walmsley had to save our medium size mammals. Unfortunately he
couldn't make them valuable enough. He was in a different scenario in that
he was trying to save highly threatened species, where habitat was an issue.
This is not the case with blackbirds.
In a nutshell making things valuable in dollar terms is a way to save them
not get rid of them.
Gary
On 17 April 2010 23:46, Michael Atzeni <> wrote:
> Hi Gary
>
> I'm not proposing a bounty for trapped birds so does that change your
> thinking on this?
>
> Bounty would only be eligible to those whose information (e.g. photographic
> evidence) is subsequently corroborated by an inspection of the area/property
> by an appropriate authority. If the landowner reports the birds in the
> first place, then a condition of receiving the bounty would be access to the
> property to inspect, and permission to trap where warranted.
>
> The notion of shady customers breeding blackbirds then releasing them,
> hoping they'll establish territories at/near point of release, on the
> off-chance they can claim a bounty or two in the breeding season seems a
> hard way to make a crooked dollar.
>
> Mick
>
>
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