Impacts of bird ringing (threads merged) (2 Viewers)

[Jos Stratford]

Aeroplanes aren't birds, and neither are bridges.

Quote of the century, I like it

 

[a.dancy]

Adrian,


Simple engineering equations can't be used on complex phenomena and the parallels with your use of the principles of bridge engineering to calculate the flying efficiency of ringed birds should be obvious. Aeroplanes aren't birds, and neither are bridges.

Graham

That means he got wrong! at a basic level. Now go and wind up someone else3

 

[Collster]

There is a very large body of research on stress levels from both handling and recreational disturbance. They will all take some interpreting, but do have a look.

Typing "corticosterone bird response" into Google will give you a wealth of papers, but also try the reference list on this paper:
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/klivv/en/seminars/2007_08/Lambrechts2006_GCE_CMüller.pdf

As for Nightjars, anyone wanting to ring these birds in the breeding season will need several endorsements on their permit. They will need a mist net endorsement, a playback lure endorsement (with additional permission to use this in the breeding season) and a Schedule 1 licence for rare breeding birds.
Thanks for that Mark, i still fail to see why they have to be disturbed just prior to breeding after a long journey to get over here. If it has to be done why not wait until after breeding. Playing a tape recording prior to breeding is surely going to add stress to males that are setting up territories. As for reporting the person i wont do that, but have informed him via a contact that if hes up there next season doing the same then i will inform the forestry commission and get him removed. If this was part of a serious study being carried out on the species i would understand but its just one man and his mist net out to catch as many nightjars as he can- what this proves or is likely to prove is beyond me, and him i think

 

[DEREK.C.]

Did you also know that British finches (such as Bramblings and bullfinches) are still trapped on licence in the Uk to supply and prop up the captive bird fancy .

If anybody from the BTO with any information on the above statement please send me a PM.
It was illegal throughout the 1980`s and 1990`s . Northumbria Police and the British Bird Council know nothing about it.
Cheers.

 

[Mark Grantham]

I must admit I don't know of any such cases, and would be surprised if this was so. With the tightening of the Widlife and Countryside Act in the new CRoW Act this would seem unlikely.

Mark G

 

[KnockerNorton]

If anybody from the BTO with any information on the above statement please send me a PM.
It was illegal throughout the 1980`s and 1990`s . Northumbria Police and the British Bird Council know nothing about it.
Cheers.

Read this: http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/birdreg-schedule4/consultation.pdf

Look under Redwing, Snow Bunting and Cirl Bunting. Look for 'taken under licence' or 'wild origin'.

Can't find more relevant figures at present, but the above shows you that it takes place (and these are specially protected birds).

Section 16 of the "Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Ch. 69, s. 16 (Eng.)
16 Power to grant licences:

(e) for the purposes of falconry or aviculture;

Also see this and skip to last post:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...a+licence+aviculture&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk

 

[DEREK.C.]

Thanks for posting the above,it has a lot of interesting information attached, although i apologise for changing the topic of the thread.

 

[Newton Stringer]

Just asked a mate who is in "the know" about these things....

He told me......

Yes this clause does exist in the W & C act... however it is considered defunt by the licencing authority (DEFRA). No one actually has this licence to trap these birds, and if applied for DEFRA have a general policy of declining applications because there isn't a proven need for bringing these birds into captivity, as they already exist in captivity and are bred in captivity..

....it would be considered as licencing an illegal activity !!

 

[KnockerNorton]

Just asked a mate who is in "the know" about these things....

He told me......

Yes this clause does exist in the W & C act... however it is considered defunt by the licencing authority (DEFRA). No one actually has this licence to trap these birds, and if applied for DEFRA have a general policy of declining applications because there isn't a proven need for bringing these birds into captivity, as they already exist in captivity and are bred in captivity..

....it would be considered as licencing an illegal activity !!

So explain the licence granted for Snow Bunts and Redwings within the last decade. Licences are granted where the captive population looks like it may die out.

Defra licence hundreds of people to shoot sparrows, cormorants etc every year, and that is also "licencing an illegal activity".

 

[Ausable Bird Observatory]

Defra licence hundreds of people to shoot sparrows, cormorants etc every year, and that is also "licencing an illegal activity".

Is this true? Knowing what we do about the decline of House Sparrows and the Species-at-Risk status of the Tree Sparrow?

Peter Fearon

 

[KnockerNorton]

this is info for 2005 (the only year that appears to be on the web)

http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-co...tatistics/Licensing-Statistics-birds-2005.pdf

scroll down to House Sparrow and see the number of licences issued/birds affected and the methods (eg shooting). Also see Starling, Bullfinch, Cormorant.

I know they are more heavily protected now, but the reasons that the licences were issued (eg public safety) are unlikely to be influenced - public safety will always take precedence over bird protection laws.

Also note that 34 song thrushes were licenced to be killed by falconers - for fun!

 

[keithmills61]

marking/ringing birds

im new to this forum so forgive me if this has been covered before!
can the B T O justify the ringing of so many birds for such very little returns?
the amount of distress and disturbance to so many birds seems to me to be totally unacceptable for the extremely few results returned, i personally believe it is a "hobby" that has conservation acceptance but no real conservational purpose! we know enough about most species without having to trap them or invade thier nests just to confirm what we allready know!
i would like the BTO to tell us since ringing began, how many golden eagles nests have been "deliberatly disturbed" under license to ring thier chicks and how many chicks have subsequently been found? NOT MANY is the disturbance worth it ? i personnally think not.

 

[KorHaan]

im new to this forum so forgive me if this has been covered before!
can the B T O justify the ringing of so many birds for such very little returns?
the amount of distress and disturbance to so many birds seems to me to be totally unacceptable for the extremely few results returned, i personally believe it is a "hobby" that has conservation acceptance but no real conservational purpose! we know enough about most species without having to trap them or invade thier nests just to confirm what we allready know!
i would like the BTO to tell us since ringing began, how many golden eagles nests have been "deliberatly disturbed" under license to ring thier chicks and how many chicks have subsequently been found? NOT MANY is the disturbance worth it ? i personnally think not.

I share your thoughts.
There's another thread on this forum, " Impacts of bird ringing " which you may find interesting from your point of view.

Greetings, Ronald

 

[tomjenner]

This has been discussed before on many threads, but I feel that the comments made need at least some response. Firstly, that there is little discovered from the studies made from ringing. I can't disagree more; it seems to me that there is a huge amount that has been found from ringing birds. Ringing is a major part of most scientific studies of birds and such studies form the basis of our knowledge about birds.
Secondly, that ringing causes major disturbance to birds. Of course there will be a few instances where a bird will have some minor disturbance, but I'm sure it is negligible. To use the example given, I would be surprised if a single Golden Eagle nest has been lost due to ringing. It takes many years to train to handle birds and to get a special permit to handle birds in the nest; it is not just done without thought. Finally, the BTO is always keen to stress to ringers that the data is only valid if it doesn't affect the birds. If the capture of birds, the handling or the ring itself had an adverse impact, the data would not be usable in a scientific study of wild birds.
It is true that many ringers do it as a hobby and produce no scientific publications of their own. However, the data they are adding to the main BTO data set is being used by qualified ornithologists all the time. Without them, there would be too little data collected at too few locations for the wider picture to be seen of population declines etc. Even many non-profesional ringers also take part in larger monitoring schemes such as the constant effort sites.

Tom

 

[KnockerNorton]

im new to this forum so forgive me if this has been covered before!
can the B T O justify the ringing of so many birds for such very little returns?
the amount of distress and disturbance to so many birds seems to me to be totally unacceptable for the extremely few results returned, i personally believe it is a "hobby" that has conservation acceptance but no real conservational purpose! we know enough about most species without having to trap them or invade thier nests just to confirm what we allready know!
i would like the BTO to tell us since ringing began, how many golden eagles nests have been "deliberatly disturbed" under license to ring thier chicks and how many chicks have subsequently been found? NOT MANY is the disturbance worth it ? i personnally think not.

You can find Golden Eagle data here: http://blx1.bto.org/pdf/ringmigration/22_4/ringreport.pdf

which tells you that out of 1,181 birds ringed (most probably pulli), 54 have been recovered. It is not just the finding of the chicks later on that is valuable, it is also the weighing, the measuring, the blood sampling, the nest site data, blah blah blah. Which is the only way to get it.

But if you think that we know enough about most species not to need to study them then you need to read more and realise that we know very little about most species, even the very common ones, never mind golden eagles.

 

[Sue Wright]

Hi Keith and a warm welcome to Bird Forum.

Like Ronald and many others here at BF, I also share your thoughts and concerns. Tom has given you a general account of ringing and I see Poecile has given you a link to Golden Eagle data.

The "Impacts of bird ringing" thread Ronald speaks of is here http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=99780 and if you read it all though you'll find it makes very interesting reading indeed. To begin with it appears there is a limit of 4 rings per Bird, to date the most I've see is 6! So someone's either not doing the job right or just not sticking to the rules?! I agree that in the beginning a certain amount of ringing was needed for conservation, but after all the years of it being used I fail to see the reasons why it still continues. Birds suffer enough natural stress every day of their lives without the additional unnatural and unnecessary stress at two of their most vulnerable times i.e breeding and migration.

Best wishes,

Sue.

 

[John Morgan]

The "Impacts of bird ringing" thread Ronald speaks of is here http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=99780 and if you read it all though you'll find it makes very interesting reading indeed. To begin with it appears there is a limit of 4 rings per Bird, to date the most I've see is 6! So someone's either not doing the job right or just not sticking to the rules?! I agree that in the beginning a certain amount of ringing was needed for conservation, but after all the years of it being used I fail to see the reasons why it still continues. Birds suffer enough natural stress every day of their lives without the additional unnatural and unnecessary stress at two of their most vulnerable times i.e breeding and migration.

I see you have finally decided to stop sniping from the bushes and post on the correct forum for this kind of discussion.

I'm also delighted to see that you have come clean and owned up to you ignorance concerning ringing. I refer to your statement,"I agree that in the beginning a certain amount of ringing was needed for conservation, but after all the years of it being used I fail to see the reasons why it still continues." The reason why you fail is that you do not bother to inform yourself about the current state of thought within ringing, especially concerning its usefulness in understanding conservation requirements for quite common species. The House Sparrow is a classic example of a species that seemed so invulnerable to problems the BTO decided back in the '60s to stop ringing them. The loss of data that 30 years of ringing could have given is regarded as a tradgedy for this species conservation.

I happen to agree with you that the fitting of multiple color rings seems excessive. There are bicolored and alphanumeric-inscribed rings that could be used instead, and so fewer would be needed.

I see you are feeding us the old line about stress again. Did you bother to follow up the references to papers that were quoted here? By doing so you will find that research in ringing is very much interested in the reaction of the ringed bird - for reasons that have been explained several times on threads like this. Perhaps you didn't see them - or more likely didn't want to see them. In a word, if ringed birds fail to perform normally it is bad news for the research - therefore we need to know if this happens, and with what frequency.

 

[keithmills61]

im new to this forum so forgive me if this has been covered before!
can the B T O justify the ringing of so many birds for such very little returns?
the amount of distress and disturbance to so many birds seems to me to be totally unacceptable for the extremely few results returned, i personally believe it is a "hobby" that has conservation acceptance but no real conservational purpose! we know enough about most species without having to trap them or invade thier nests just to confirm what we allready know!
i would like the BTO to tell us since ringing began, how many golden eagles nests have been "deliberatly disturbed" under license to ring thier chicks and how many chicks have subsequently been found? NOT MANY is the disturbance worth it ? i personnally think not.

please dont get me wrong i am not against ringing of birds full stop, i just quiery why some species continue to need the distress and disturbance of this really quite intrusive procedure when i feel there is very little to be gained by it for that particular species, i think an informed and researched argument should be put forward as to why ringing needs to be carried out on a species by species basis before licensing should be allowed for it to go ahead.i have personal experience of a male sparrow hawk caught in the gap of a fence by its ring? the results from the golden eagle ringing results only confirms by concerns, not a huge return for so much intrusion into a species that you or i would be prosecuted for disturbing, i really feel strongly that this practice should be much more restricted, monitored and regulated.
i allso have serious concerns around wing tagging of certain species, we have a red kite release programe which has been a huge success and well done to all concerned and i really can see the point in covering these 1st batch of birds with id wing tags as well as numerous rings of various colours ,micro chips and god knows what else. But i dont think it should go on and on for years, these accessories can only be a hinderance and once birds become established as they are becoming i think it is an unnessessary burdon on them and should stop.

 

[Black Wheatear]

i have personal experience of a male sparrow hawk caught in the gap of a fence by its ring?

Hi Keith,

Think all this and more has been included in the current thread 'Impacts of Bird Ringing', so please spare us our forum here for ringers with yet another thread and post to that thread. Also I believe you will be able to read constructive answers to your and others queries, certainly by following many threads given to support answers, then you have the opportunity to view reasoned and scientific evidence to support ringing. Of course you might not be bothered one way or the other and simply want to give expression to your own emotions. As for your quote above, I had the most distressing experience myself yesterday with the same species, but as you can see from the photo, it was its wing which caused the problem, so looking at the photo wouldn't you agree the fence was the biggest problem???

 

[keithmills61]

Did you also know that British finches (such as Bramblings and bullfinches) are still trapped on licence in the Uk to supply and prop up the captive bird fancy that Derek was a part of? That's why many were so stressed, they would have been only several generations at most from wild birds (or maybe none), whereas eg Australian finches are are dozens of generations from wild birds and are semi-domesticated. I used to be involved with aviculture too, y'see.

Talk about pots and kettles!

Anyway, ringing is licenced and strictly controlled. Yes, there is a mortality rate, but it's very very low. If it affected the birds in a major, life-threatening way it would not give you useful data on the behaviour of wild birds, so would be pointless. In my experience, wild birds (passerines), not those with the added stress of being in aviaries, acclimatise to rings after about 5 mins and then ignore them. And that's up to 4 rings. It also has no impact on the breeding performance of the populations I've studied.

While there may be casualties at the individual bird level, at the population level ringing gives us so much valuable information on conserving birds that I think that the low casualty rate is worth it. Otherwise people wouldn't do it, and the Government wouldn't let them. The primary rule in the ringing manual is "the welfare of the bird must come first".

I'd ve very wary of hearsay. It's usually bollox. If you have specific queries or complaints then the people to ask are the BTO, who manage and police the scheme on behalf of your elected representatives.

bird ringing is just so unrepresentative of whats really going on in most populations, do people really think that the hundreds of wild (ringed)goshawks killed by gamekeepers every year are reported? dont think so. so the odd one genuinely recovered really isnt representative of whats acctually going on , is it? bird ringing is a largely pointless and mostly needless "hobby" where the few good, usefull results do not outway the amount of negatives involved.