Hello: I received a email from a Minnesota birder who reported this to me today "I birded the bog Sunday and had a run-in with a photographer who was baiting the hawk owl at Sax road and cty 7. We were stopped along with another car of birders when this guy in a truck with North Dakota platesstops about a hundred yards away. He's out monkey around picking stuff up and putting something on the ground, and when he does the owl comes streaking in full bore right at the guy. He must've been yanking the bait away because it didn't look like the bird got anything. I yelled at him to knock it off and he stopped. Later after I got in my car he drove up and confronted the guys from the other car, so I got back out to talk to him. His excuse was "well, the road is where they hunt anyway." I told him no, he didn't need to condition the bird to the roadside and if he was patient he'd get good shots anyway. Frustrating. "
Here is another story of how a Northern Hawk Owl has apparently died this year due to over aggressive photographers: http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0901b&L=birdchat&X=373893429F7451F5D2&Y=richditch%40earthlink.net&P=2632 I been following several photography forums: Camera Talk Minnesota, Fishingminnesota.com, Naturephotographers.net and I can honestly say many photographers are using the MOU-listserv to look for owls and all other bird sightings and go after them for photos. Now bear in mind the majority of photographers are very ethical and then there are some who do not care one bit about anything other than getting the "money shot". Just like there are a ton of birders who follow the ABA guidelines for observing birds and then there's those who do not follow any ethical guidelines and gives the rest of us birders a bad name. Also I am not against photographers at all, its just the small minority of them like the guy from North Dakota who makes me very angry that they think this is ethical to tease a owl with prey to get a photo. I am sure most photographers would not support this type of strategy to get a photo of a owl. I ask any birder who visits Sax Zim Bog or if you see anyone teasing owls this winter in Minnesota to get their license numbers and report them to the DNR. If you have a camera take photos of them or take a video of them as proof of what they are doing is plain wrong! Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/ Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
