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Good or bad PR? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Qingcol
- Start date
citrinella
Well-known member
Fluctuation is the whole point. Taking a snapshot is not good enough. Monitoring must continue to see what is happening, long term.
Those very long term trends you refer to are not relevant to your point - they will be too long term to influence our data collection the way you are making out.
Mike.
OK, you need to keep on trapping and ringing thousands of Blue Tits every year, for as long as you can, in the process killing and injuring a percentage, with real potential for spreading fatally infectious diseases like trichonomosis, to be able to spot a trend!! What is a BTO expectable, Blue Tit population level, a five or a thousand year average? When the alarm goes off and it drops below this 'average' will they stop ringing Blue Tits, stop interfering inside nest boxes, no, not a bit of it, they will need more ringing data, right down to the last bird standing.
Although the mortality rate is disputed, no one denies that some birds are killed in the process, the injury rate will be higher than average, as Blue Tits are not the easiest to extract from mist nets. Any accurate diagnosis of infections like trichonomosis usually requires a post mortem?
Colin
Jamie Dunning
Well-known member
Colin up to now you've been quite balanced - there's no point any of us engaging if this debate if it's going to descend into hysterics.
I think it's been established earlier on that the number of casualties from bird ringing is low. Even if it was 1/50 an R selected species such as Blue tit would cope. i know you're using them as an example but bar a few fantastic and well studied populations there are very few people who are going out to catch blue tits. The Oxford long-term study is (if nothing else!) the ideal illustration of how and why long-term popualtion studies work and are necessary.
I think you're trying to make the point that bird ringing for the sake of bird ringing isn't AS ethical as it perhaps could be. There are those that actively chase ringing ticks, to that extent I'd agree with you.
Jamie, whatever you think about my hysterics, I do genuinely value any comments made by yourself, and others on this thread. It is a sensitive subject, naturally it will inflame opinion on both sides of the argument, I know that I'm willing to learn from other people's views, even if it is only a hit-and-run type comment. I happen to consider that a debate on this subject is necessary, and of value, perhaps I'm not the best one to do it, although I have attempted to reply to every comment and I will continue to do so. If I'm deemed to be hysterical from time to time, then a 'bad day snapshot' is no good, best take an average of replies across the thread to establish, as with Blue Tit Populations.
Colin
John Morgan
Well-known member
All of us suffer from a degree of cognitive dissonance, as recent studies in psychology have shown, so you need to begin by acknowledging this applies to you as much as it does to others posting on this thread.
Have you been through the BTO web site to see the extent that ringing feeds the flow of knowledge about populations of common species? Have you taken time to read the hundreds of papers that are published every year based on results from ringing/banding? Have you then asked yourself how these results might change if accident rates of 1%, 2%, 5% were factored in? Once you've done that you are in a position to write a technical paper about it, and submit it to a journal for publication. No other possibility presents itself, as personal opinion is ultimately worthless in science. The good doctor Ignaz Semmelweiss labored for years to establish his contrary ideas. He died without knowing he was correct and the prevailing science was wrong. That's how it goes, I'm afraid :C
Birdforum is not a scientific journal, more a forum of opinions and ideas, a way to both let off steam and gauge the opinions of others. There is no attempt to influence real science, perhaps, in some small way, a hope of influencing others by, attempting to delouse ringing of its many pseudo-scientific fleas.
As I have stated earlier I'm not anti ringing, But I would much rather be accused of 'cognitive dissonance' causing (Mental stress) than contributing to an activity that, in part, I truly believe is having a negative effect on some bird populations and data. At this time, birds have many and varied negative pressures to cope with, this particular pressure, we still have control over.
I have read quite a few ringing based papers, no surprise that none of them mention any real advantage to, or negative effects to the birds, but I have to admit, I have missed the 'hundreds' you speak of.
Colin
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John Morgan
Well-known member
No, it isn't. It's something quite different so I suggest you Google it.
I'm sure that, at the time I was training I was encouraged to tick as many species as I could, to improve my chances of obtaining an A permit.
So far I have made no mention of ethical considerations; I do think it's a little ironic that we as humans create the biggest problems for birds, not least our overpopulation demands on limited resources, rather than face up to these difficult challenges a small number of the 'chillingly unaccountable' decided that it would be a good idea to mark all wild birds, and worst of all, keep on marking them with metal, or plastic under the banner of bird conservation. At a time when bird numbers are plummeting, they are still perceived as, a component to be manipulated, not as valued components of our environment in their own rite. A misplaced belief that, changing their appearance in the face of millions of years of evolution, will have no effect, plus so what if a percentage die in the process, they have recovered in the past. At least for a short while, we can bury our heads in sand and indulge man's hunting and collecting instincts, all the while playing our small part in endangering birds, then eagerly adding them to our growing endangered lists.
Colin
grahamarchy
Well-known member
i did dip into this and then out again after adding a dimes worth. however this has degenerated into such an odd rant that it is not worth reading again.
You are not willing to debate or to understand and that is sad for you. You really do only know all that you know about birds because of bird ringing. if you look at say a central African Country with no ringing scheme. hardly anything is really known about their birds at all- from a conservation measures/ threats and possible mitigation point of view. If you show up at a river and see 100 martins each day, you have no idea if this site is internationally important due to 100 passing every five minutes, or if it is less important with a resident population of 100.
If you stand at a similar river in France you know due to the 100000's of martins ringed the answer to that question.
if you think that ringing does not have a place in conservation they you are seriously deluded and the evidence is really overwhelming.
You did start off with a kind of interesting debate, and people did engage, but now they wont and you are the reason why, you are far from a person that anyone would ever wish to debate with- as a debate is only fun if both parties have an open questioning mind.
You will never know what information my 8750 bird provided but needless to say that the ringing ensured that there was evidence to turn at least one species' 145 birds into what now stands at 1800. prior to ringing the population was estimated as ?
Ringing has its place and no one serious about conservation and knowledgeable on the subject will think otherwise for a very very long time.
LowellMills
Is this your Sanderling?
Hear hear mate. The number of times I've clicked into this thread seeing the latest post is by Qingcol, assuming they must be responding to someone else weighing in on this farce of a 'debate', only to find it's Qingcol's 4th or 5th post back to back... Get a public access TV show (maybe in smalltown America) if you want to go on like that.
Are you sure it's not fun because I don't totally agree with you? If you find a thread odd, or distasteful, you don't have to engage, it will soon die if left alone.
I don't deny that ringing has played an important role in our understanding, and still does with well focused studies; if you had read the thread you would acknowledge that. I simply think that it's time to move on to the less intrusive, more focused hi-tech methods we have at our disposal, with more respect for the individual, not simply put rings on every bird in the country as part of some trendy country pursuit.
As for people no longer engaging, I'm surprised they even did! Like ringing should be, my thread was focused; you would hardly expect someone using a forum headed 'Ringing and Banding' not to be biased.
It's true that all this has been said before and it's difficult not to plagiarize, my aim was to show that not everybody is enthusiastic about the direction in which modern ringing is heading, with my modest target of 5,000 views I feel that, I have at least achieved that. even if only one of those 5,000 had an open mind.
Colin
Hear hear, Lowellmills, someone dares to blatantly push bird welfare concerns on a ringing forum like this and expect replies! The way ornithologists treat bird's sets an example to everybody else, by ignoring avian sentience and not discussing ethical (Not Scientific) costs is a mistake.
Colin
Open-minded scepticism about the goals and practice of science is healthy and will make for better and more responsible science (Bekoff 1995b, and Jamieson 1996)
John Morgan
Well-known member
This is the vital part of the quotation, just in case you'd overlooked it, Colin.
chris butterworth
aka The Person Named Above
So what is the answer? Stop all ringing, forever? There would be no ringing fatalities then. Only ring "certain" species? You'd need to devise a "species selective" net! Hunt out the "trophy" ringers? As nets / Heligoland / Potter traps are not "selective" how can ringers be going after "trophy" species? It's the luck of the draw. Can we / should we improve the welfare of the birds caught? Of course, but not by promulgating a Luddite rant about non-existent ringers who's whole raison d'etre is to notch up the biggest species list. I agree that the vast majority of those involved with birds like to add a new species to our list but the premise that ringers go out of their way to do so is, frankly, farcical. One last thing. The constant effort of ringing "common" species has given us vast amounts of data on such things as longevity, territory size, male / female ratios etc. All are vital if we wish to conserve the species as a whole, a much more "ethical" and "moral" goal that the saving of an individual.
If you mean that I'm not easily persuaded by the repeated mantra 'that the continued blanket ringing of all species is still essential to bird conservation' then I'm guilty as charged. If indeed this is the case, then the sure way to persuade me is to list a few of the conservation successes. At a time of significant, specialist species decline, please point me to a species where ringing alone has been attributed to halting or reversing that decline.
Colin
LowellMills
Is this your Sanderling?
Demanding "ringing alone" is unfair. Ringing contributes to wider studies in many cases. However, since you asked: The above-mentioned CES ringing scheme has given us survival and productivity data which in the case of reed-bed species would be unobtainable by any other means. Try surveying accurate numbers of Cetti's, Sedge and Reed Warbler with binoculars and a transect map. In the case of the Reed Warbler we now know from CES that although nearly all Afro-Palaearctic migrants are declining, the Reed Warbler is not (I'd imagine from reedbed creation for Bittern over the 90s/00s). Other studies which have not used more advanced tracking, just colour rings, are completely responsible for all we know about, say, Black-Tailed Godwits from Iceland. We now know their survival rates have changed for the better, so conservation efforts on the breeding grounds have 'worked'. Detection of successes, not just declines, is undeniably important.
And from the above are you also saying we should give up on ringing because policy-makers don't listen to ideas put forward from (in this case) ringing studies? What else is new?!
And from the above are you also saying we should give up on ringing because policy-makers don't listen to ideas put forward from (in this case) ringing studies? What else is new?!
Some good interesting point's, thank you Lowellmills. Nowhere do I advocate stopping all ringing.
Colin
Nobody wants to stop all ringing; as long as there are people eager and willing to pay for the privilege there is no fear of this happening in the near future. I agree with you that, there is nothing wrong with wanting to ring new species, it's a natural driver for the activity, although I see a big difference in bycatch, and directly targeting a species using sophisticated playback techniques.
How can you label a lone plea, to consider changing our inherited 19th century attitudes towards birds as a (Luddite Rant)? However you choose to wrap up the evidence, it's not really working for the birds at the moment, over and above a few unrelated highs, mainly due to reed-bed creation and climate change, despite amassing all this vital data. Instead of letting the activity itself, become the driver, why not strive for a targeted, selective ringing effort, willing to embrace newly emerging, less intrusive techniques, not just ring all that moves in the hope of some useful data emerging later on. Perhaps try to get away from attitudes that regard some individuals as dispensable, for the greater good of some future 'possible' conservation of the species, when all we really need to do is safeguard a habitat for that species.
Frankly, anyone who has a genuine passion for birds, and does not value, or respect individual birds in their own rite, consciously prepared to sacrifice the few, for data that 'might' be useful to us in the future, should not do it under the banner of (ethical and moral). Simply one person's opinion.
Colin
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