On Thu, 2011-11-03 at 23:01 -0500, Fr. Paul Kammen wrote: > I realize that > baiting a bird is a debatable topic, but my opinion on that is if it is such > a bad > thing, or harmful to an owl, wouldn't the DNR make a law or regulation that > says you can't do this?
Surely you understand that there are behaviors that are harmful and unethical that can't or won't be made illegal. For instance, I'm fairly sure that it is not illegal to chase off an owl by running at it while waving your arms (provided it is not nesting). Nevertheless, I think most people would agree that it wouldn't be particularly ethical behavior. > I live in the Twin Cities, and last spring a poster let me know about a great > horned owl in a tree. I didn't get good photos, but would like to try again. > He > was very specific, and I set up my tripod and camera below the tree, and > there > was no issue. I'm sure you can also appreciate that there is a rather large difference between a report of the common and widespread Great Horned Owl and (for example) a report of the secretive and rare (for Minnesota) Boreal Owl that has come farther south into Minnesota for the winter to avoid starvation from lack of food in its normal breeding range. Reasonable people can disagree about the correct approach to take in each situation, but I think it's indisputable that a report of a Boreal Owl near the twin cities would attract orders of magnitude more telephoto lenses than a report of a Great Horned Owl. > Frankly as I said, I'd find it quite frustrating if someone posted about an > owl or > any bird but didn't want to give out any information on it's location - even > if > unintended I'd almost take it as a gloat. I see this list as a place to share > information, and think the best route is to ask people to use etiquette. If somebody politely suggests withholding exact location details out of a stated concern for the animal's welfare, I'd suggest that you take that at face value rather than attempting to impugn his motives (e.g. "gloating", "trying to drum up business", etc). Online communities and discussions tend to work best when people assume that others mean well. regards, jonathon ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
