Steve raised a concern about the use of audio playback for personal
gain, not related to scientific study. I think it is important to think
of the consequences of our activities on wildlife, and I appreciate
Steve raising this concern.
I did 34 years of field study of Golden-winged Warblers, more than
half of it requiring the capture and banding of birds with individual
markers, without which the research data could not have been obtained.
I have probably had more hours of field experience, probably hundreds of
hours, using playing audio calls to attract birds into nets than anyone
in this community. I intensively played audios back to catch some
individual males. I was willing to accept some bird fatality to obtain
the data that can be used for the conservation of the entire species.
That seemed a fair trade. I do recall 3 or 4 nests where nest checking
caused mortality. I do recall banding that caused perhaps two
fatalities. I DO NOT RECALL ANY BIRD THAT ABANDONED ITS NEST, LOST A
MATE OF AN ESTABLISHED PAIR, OR DESERTED A TERRITORY OUT OF A THOUSAND
ATTEMPTS TO CATCH AND BAND A BIRD USING AUDIO PLAYBACK. My work involved
relating nesting success to environmental factors and I did everything
reasonable to reduce the chances that my activities would harm the
birds. I was acutely aware or sensitive to what happened to each nest,
to each pair, to each male or female. I never saw that audio lures hurt
a bird. My quantified data has never shown that a few minutes of audio
playback is a problem for birds.
I suppose the chances of harm to the bird due to audio playback are
about of the same order of magnitude of the chances of your car killing
a bird as you drive up and down to Montezuma NWR. Most accept that risk
for our pleasure. Once this year I almost veered off the road to try to
avoid a Ring-necked Pheasant, which I hit anyway, which is more damage
than I ever attributed to audio playbacks. I am quite conscious of
trying to help wildlife through the worst storms of winter by feeding
them as some compensation for the loss of habitat, and highway
mortality, and infrastructure damage to wildlife caused by humans. I am
actually quite conscious of this reasoning when I buy the usual 100 lb
cracked corn, 100 lb whole kernel corn, and 100 lb black oil seed
perhaps every 2-3 weeks., and when I make an extra, outside trip or two
or even three in a day to put feed out on the ground when it is snowing
hard. I maintain a few bird houses, and apply the same conscious thought
of compensating birds for my share of the the infrastructure that has
depleted habitat and killed birds. I think we all accept some damage to
wildlife for our pleasure. But, I don't think a few minutes of audio
playback by one or two or three individuals makes any difference.Cheers, John Confer -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
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