Another example where ex-hunters have been hired for conservation work is at
REGUA in Brasil.
Around 94% of the Mata Atlantica forest in Brasil (a wonderful bio-diverse
area) has been cleared and REGUA is helping to protect what is left. I have
visited REGUA several times and am very impressed with what they are doing.
Apart from buying up land, undertaking conservation work, reforestation,
research and education they have recruited ex-local hunters as
wardens/rangers specifically to successfully prevent illegal hunting. The
ex-hunters also act as bird guides and one of them, Adielei, is fantastic at
imitating bird calls - you definitely don't need an mp3 player containing
the local bird calls when you are with him.
You can read more at www.regua.co.uk or www.regua.org.br if your Portuguese
is OK. If anyone is interested I can send them the latest REGUA newsletter,
in English, which I recently received.
Cheers,
Bob Sothman, Adelaide
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Adrian Boyle
Sent: Friday, 5 August 2011 12:36 PM
To: Peter Shute
Cc: Heather Gibbs;
Subject: Re question of hunters in China
Hi Peter
Yes you were correct in your interpretation. Hunters that once caught birds
to sell in the markets now conduct research on a local reserve.
In the late 80,s early 90's there was little research conducted in parts of
Asia in regards to banding of Shorebirds. Hence the starting of leg flagging
in the 90's meaning that researchers like myself could go into areas and
look for these colour flags and get an insight into what populations use
particular areas at certain times of the year, identify important areas and
also obtain turn over rates for the birds.
In the 90's Chongming Dao (Island) off Shanghai was thought to be a very
important area for migratory birds as thats where we were getting lots of
band recoveries from. These were from birds at the markets that had been
captured by the hunters on the mudflats.
Numbers of hunters and birds caught varied from year to year but during
March and April in 1991 it was estimated that between 23,800 and 37,900
birds were caught and sold. The 2 common species were Great Knot and
Bar-tailed Godwits.
Once the reserve was set up due to researchers providing pressure on the
government and statistics of how important this area is for migratory birds
the catching was banned.
Thanks to counts, and being able to identify individuals in the area we
learnt that Chongming is a very important area for birds in bad weather eg
when there is a head wind or thick fog.
If the weather is clear or birds are getting a tail wind then they keep
flying further north to their main feeding areas.
Birds would land and stay for only a few days until the weather had cleared
and then move onto better feeding grounds such as Bohai Bay and Yalu Jiang
near the North Korean Border.
To obtain this data ex hunters were employed by the reserve to use
traditional methods for catching the birds. The birds were then handed over
to the researchers.
I was working at the reserve in 2006 and we were keen to get weight data on
the arrivals of the shorebirds. We employed 2 ex hunters and back then the
hunters were actually paid by the weight of the birds. This was inline with
what they would have been paid a few years before at the markets.
After the hunting season (March and April) the hunters would go back to the
farms and mainly grow rice and water melons.
Now days the hunters are employed full time by the reserve and are given a
wage. Their time is also spent fixing board walks, erecting signs for the
thousands of tourists that now visit (It is very popular for weddings), weed
eradication, and enforcing the law.
In 2006 a hunter was caught with 20 dead Great Knot . I asked what would
happen to him and they told me that because he had taken more than 12 birds
that he would be given 6 months in jail.
I said six months!!!!!!!!!!!!! They replied YOU THINK NOT HARSH
ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!! I then said no no that should be fine.
So Peter I hope that does answer you question.
It really is a great example of what conservation in some areas can achieve
and I like Heather am reminded of this when I see the Black and White flags
on Shorebirds and think if bands were not put on in the first place and
researchers had not put in the effort to study the hunting pressure leading
to a reserve being created we could easily now be seeing nearly 38,000
Shorebirds vanishing into a pot.
Cheers Adrian Boyle
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