Lay off that Laughingthrush! (1 Viewer)

Folks, time to ramp up the pressure on the Idiot Photographer Brigade and call them out for the stupid behaviour...

http://www.ace-eco.org/vol12/iss1/art15/

I am an avid photographer as part of my birding activities and this is exactly why I will always opt to miss out on a shot of even a rare species rather than cause avoidable stress and disturbance. I will even leave an area after a short time once I am noticed and birds start scolding.

Yes the extremes of egg collecting, catching birds for the cage market, yelling, waving of arms and even throwing rocks or beating the branches with sticks to flush out the birds for a better picture are obviously terribly disruptive (all of which I have observed multiple times in China), but please everybody remember that you don't have to be guilty of the extremes to nonetheless be causing disturbance. Just being part of a rare bird sighting scrum can be causing undo stress on the bird. Excited loud talking and arm waving among party members can even be a problem.

It is good to see Chinese researchers addressing the issues of human impact on the environment and I would hope that they would go the next step and use their own standing to encourage governmental authorities to list the species as protected. The opinions of 'foreigners' will have little to no effect on things in China. Then allowing the village to collect license fees for local photography and providing training to locals in how to conserve their local resource. Local, trained 'Rangers' who viewed the Laughingthrush as a local treasure and something to be protected would probably be the most effective control.