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Ethical Question (1 Viewer)

Birds in general, not necessarily raptors learn from each other and mimmick the behavior of other birds. For example, the male hawk had no interest in me what so ever until he spotted the female eating food I provided for her, now he's highly aggressive about feeding.

There is a really good article about the cognitive skills of ravens and crows on the science channel, it was to say the least eye opening.

The hawks are year round occupants, if they were migratory I wouldn't have fed them. The female was born 200 ft from my front door and has never left the area for the past 2-3 yrs, I just started feeding her this past month or so.

I'm pretty cognizant of altering their natural behaviour and will reframe from doing so.

As soon as the lighting is ok I'll try and take a video of each, male and female. I've learned quite a bit about these birds behavior from mating calls of the female and male, territorial issues, and flight patterns when feeding. The male is smaller than the female and a lot better flyer than she is. She likes to glide in, slowly, flare up and land on the food. The male on the other hand is all about speed, wings tucked in, talons down, swoops past the food with out flaring at all.

Tried to get a pic of the mating but finger was over the lens of my phone. The male has mated with the female 3 times that I've witnessed, I wouldn't have thought it would have been an on going process. Haven't seen them building a nest yet, sure it will start soon.

This will be the last year these birds will hang out here as the field they hunt in will be developed into housing.

I live with in the city limits, no hunting or open shooting allowed here.
 
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Historically a great deal of this has gone on with live prey for the purposes of photography and film making (or even for just "entertainment") - there are some notorious examples.

These days there seems to be a code that any potential prey item has to have a "reasonable means of escape" in artificial set ups for film making (at least in the UK). I'm sure that dubious practices still go on though, particularly out of sight "on location" - and it seems to be applied almost exclusively to mammals - many kingfisher shots are obtained with captive fish in a perspex box submerged into a river or pond. One of the sequences in the recent Big Cat series where fish were being caught right in front of the lens looked suspiciously as if staged to me. The "welfare" of invertebrates never seems to be considered - "I'm a Celebrity" being an obvious example.

It occurs to me that any supplementary feeding will have some "unnatural" effect on wild animals - most obviously on breeding success and in that respect anyone who simply puts a feeder up (or food out for foxes etc.) will be modifying behaviour and population dynamics to some degree.

Trapping and killing wild rodents for the purpose of getting photos or videos is not something I'd personally be prepared to do. Cultural attitudes towards animals are constantly changing - sometimes in illogical ways. I know people who will carefully trap and release small rodents from their property but kill moles that spoil their lawn.
 
These days there seems to be a code that any potential prey item has to have a "reasonable means of escape" in artificial set ups for film making
Though that of itself could also be illegal, if it is a non-native species where it is illegal to release the species into the wild (e.g. rats, gray squirrels).
 
It doesn't mean escape into the wild - just a means to avoid being killed.

A lot of film sequences are filmed in artificial sets (though perhaps less frequently these days since a number of high profile exposures) so as I understand it rather than releasing a mouse into a closed set with nowhere to hide some kind of cover - like a burrow or piece of wood is provided - so it's less like feeding a live animal to a predator (which used to be done frequently).
 
I'd think that raptors are a bit different from passerines in their food gathering technique and it must often take lake place, out of sight of the young birds so they won't learn much like that?

How would a Sparrowhawk, teach the ambush skills at a bird table with eager apprentices sat looking on?

I remember there was a young Swamphen somewhere (Cumbria?) which was feeding quite well, stripping grass stems. People were getting really excited at this thinking that it proved the bird was tought by a genuine, wild, adult somewhere - it wasn't.

A
 
I'd think that raptors are a bit different from passerines in their food gathering technique and it must often take lake place, out of sight of the young birds so they won't learn much like that?

How would a Sparrowhawk, teach the ambush skills at a bird table with eager apprentices sat looking on?

A

Well, if I was a Sparrowhawk, I'd consider getting my offspring to accompany me soaring up above woodland and then demonstrate a meteoric dive, low approach and final grab which they could watch the whole of from a thousand feet up with their astonishing eyesight.

The actual grabbing process I might give them practice at by catching something, maybe even not quite killing it, and then dropping it where they would have half a chance to catch it. Hopefully, if they aren't the thickest Sparrowhawk kids ever, they would get the idea eventually.

Simples!

John
 
I feel like I'm trolling this issue a bit but don't mean to.

How is this different than providing dead meal worms for the insect eaters. All birds that are fed in everyone's backyard is altering their behavior. Taking the devils advocate, should we stop feeding all birds, allow the population to reduce itself to what the environment can support ? I don't think anyone would agree with that. I live with in a pretty congested area of housing which was just recently developed (3-4 yrs). The area developed had a small population of deer which I feed every night (I got pics if you would like to see them). Should I stop feeding the deer now that the development took away their food plots.
 
Can you upload the video to YouTube and post the URL here? That seems easier and interested persons won't have to down a potentially large file.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
Can you upload the video to YouTube and post the URL here? That seems easier and interested persons won't have to down a potentially large file.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

That's a good idea

Saw something today I've never seen before, the male grabbed the food first, he's quite the ambush hunter, didn't see him coming. The female started squeaking and cooing at the male, he tore off a piece of the food and gave it to her. Pretty neat to see
 
How is this different than providing dead meal worms for the insect eaters. All birds that are fed in everyone's backyard is altering their behavior. Taking the devils advocate, should we stop feeding all birds, allow the population to reduce itself to what the environment can support ? I don't think anyone would agree with that. I live with in a pretty congested area of housing which was just recently developed (3-4 yrs). The area developed had a small population of deer which I feed every night (I got pics if you would like to see them). Should I stop feeding the deer now that the development took away their food plots.

Its not different. And you're right: in general feeding birds is universally acceptable. The question of trapping wild rodents I have dealt with above but if you're comfortable with it that's an end of it.

However, one question: how do you assess the deer's chances of survival in general once the area becomes housing? Risks from dog attacks, gun owners, road traffic accidents etc will all go up to some extent. Maybe it is time to discourage the deer at least from coming close to home?

Happy wildlife watching.

John
 
These type of questions never seem to have a definitive answer. I went to an environmentall college took several ethics courses where we discussed these types of scenarios endlessly
 
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