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Is ringing ethical? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Bernard the cat
- Start date
Ilya Maclean
charlatan
Poecile said:
You are correct in stating that many population trends in the UK are derived from BBS (and before that CBC), but also WeBS. CES complements these other survey methods and is particularly valuable as a means of monitoring songbirds in wetland and scrub. Furthermore, identifying downward trends is one thing, but identifying causes for declines is quite another. The latter is where ringing is most beneficial. Crucially, ringing allows one to calculate survival rates at various stages throughout the life cycle. Thus one could for example, determine whether it was fledging success, first year survival or adult survival that decreased during the period of decline in House Sparrow populations. It also allows comparisons of survival accross different habitat types. All of this provides essential clues as to the likely causes of the decline, far more so than monitoring methods that do not entail ringing.
hannu
Well-known member
Poecile said:
Of course always we should improve our methods, but if mankind continue this full egoism of life style, we have hurry to get know how these birds live in the earth. Maybe someone will discover new methods to this research in near future, but we have to use now also ringing. How, when and where we do ringing are the other question.
KnockerNorton
Well-known member
Ilya Maclean said:
Mate, that's exactly what I said - you've just re-written my post. But it ISN'T what you said in your original post, which was the point I was making: general ringing does not pick up population trends better than other survey methods currently in use. (or, indeed, it doesn't pick them up very well at all).
kuksa
Active member
Last year I marked 1800 birds, with 2 bird died |Poecile said:
| (one was taken by cat, and other died from blue tit laying in the net beside). In comparison min 3 birds died after collision with window of hose were my apartment is.By saying that I think you must evaluate the percente of birds by daying because of natural or other cases. Even incalculate these your mentioned 40 min, how big percent of them possible die if not the time spend with markers.
Moreover, I haven't seen any bird in my life with material attached (traped) by ring (I know that there is many cases in literature), but indead I so several birds with fishing line and other materials around the neck ore legs (but birds were not ringed). So, we must estimate the proportions of both marked and unmarked birds and the freequences of cases, also including if the ring did cost the problem. Before such studies are done (if you know such studies, I will be happy to read them) is not an argument
hannu
Well-known member
We have to remember also that the resources to benefit all data is quite limited in every countries. And because ringing work based mainly in voluntarily. So ringing method does not show all values which it can be give, if the resources would be bigger. So money talks in every place.
Ilya Maclean
charlatan
Poecile said:
I think you're getting a little confused. Firstly, I haven't re-written your post, except as a quote (do correct me if I'm wrong, by showing me where you wrote this). Read carefully what I said. Secondly it was Jane and not me that suggested ringing picks up population trends better than other survey methods!
Pterodroma
Well-known member
ocelot said:
Yes, birds die in the hand.......when I saw this, the ringer said 'this bird must have been ill'' (!)
Mike Johnston
Well-known member
99.9% of birds do not die in the hand. It's a fair assumption to consider the possibility that the bird was already extremely weakened, perhaps through illness.Pterodroma said:
hannu
Well-known member
Pterodroma said:
Of course, always happens when someone works. These methods are not safety in every case, unfortunately.
But if the ringing does not benefit human (to correct his own behaviour), then should we not use any this kind of method to study birds?
Why we should use e.g. rats in the testing of cancer medicine? Because it benefits human kind also?
Bernard the cat
Registered User
hannu said:
I can't be bothered to go through all the points you raised, but with regard to there being no evidence that birds die as a result of the trauma of ringing, I would point out that a lack of empirical evidence does not disprove any causal link between ringing and bird casualties - it could clearly be quite difficult to establish the precise cause of death of a blue tit found dead next to a bird observatory, even if such 'avian post-mortems' were carried out (which I'm guessing they're not, except in unusual circumstances).
KnockerNorton
Well-known member
kuksa said:Before such studies are done (if you know such studies, I will be happy to read them) is not an argument
No, such studies aren't available, as far as I know, at least in the UK, as the BTO suppresses such information as it is bad publicity for the scheme. last year I did 1700 and 3 died as a direct result. But recently i saw an exercise where 5 out of 700 died.
With reference to Mike Johnston's post, re birds being weakened, this is the crux of my point. Is it ethical to set mist nets to catch and ring newly arrived migrants, such as happens at e.g. UK observatories? Such birds are often very weakened, and are caught early in the day before they can feed up. With birds such as goldcrests, what the is need for this now? We pretty much know where they're coming from, and where they go, and if populations change then this will be picked up at observatory counts and BBS etc. Then we can look into it again, but for the moment I think it's counterproductive to ringing as a whole. I don't believe it stresses them directly, but the chances of them dying due to not being able to feed for an hour or chilling in the net (when they have fat/muscle scores of zero) is much increased and, in my opinion, not wholly justified.
It must be said that we simply do not know how many small birds die within e.g. an hour of being released after ringing. We will probably never know. It could be 10%. In population studies, many ringed birds are never seen again after release. They've probably just moved away, but we cannot say that for sure.
hannu
Well-known member
ocelot said:
Of course there can be cases where bird has died in some reason. Any ringer can admit that, but this because we have not yet better methods, which gives us info in so many ways.
But do you accept e.g. more unetnical animal test, which gives benefits to you in form of medicine, when you get sick? Because it's clear that you don't accept less unetnical bird ringing which at least in some level benefits birds?
So if you answer to the first question is that you don't accept the animal test in any form, then don't eat those medicine developed by the tests or buy lipstick to your girlfriend or wife or what ever, which is tested with the help of animal, if you want to be consistent! Then I respect you and your opinion in every ways!
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KnockerNorton
Well-known member
ocelot said:
The trauma is usually physical, i.e. injury, such as crushing or fractures. Some birds do die in the birdbag. Who is to say that this isn't down to the 'trauma'? It's probably because they're already weak, or perhaps injured during extraction. But then an hour sat in a net and a birdbag at dawn could have been spent feeding after crossing the English Channel.
Bernard the cat
Registered User
Mike Johnston said:
Although fear is usually labelled as an emotion (though how do you define emotion anyway?), it is a complex physiological and psychological response to perceived threat or danger. Clearly birds and most other animals will not experience the psychological aspect of fear that humans do, but they will still experience pysiological arousal of the central nervous system, e.g. increased circulation, respiration etc which will be experienced as stress, irrespective of any psychological component - in short, they will experience the in-built 'fight or flight' response, and this is NOT dependent upon a level of self-conscious awareness. In fact, a lack of self-conscious awareness will increase levels of fear and stress in animals that have been captured, as they do not understand that (in the case of ringing) they will shortly be released unharmed. Birds therefore most definitely do experience fear in situations of perceived threat, which I would argue includes being caught as part of ringing activities, even if they are not physically harmed.
hannu
Well-known member
Poecile said:
We can speculate on this in the rest of our life, but it does not help bird species to survive in this incomplete World. I think that we can protect birds much more to concentrate to improve our etnical issues in every day decisions, what we buy, when we use car to moving, etc...
Overall, to the long-term benefit of birds, is ringing good or bad? Answer that and you have the answer, broadly, to whether it is ethical. I would say adding up the many pluses, providing population dynamics, movement data, etc, etc, the benefits have far outweighed the relative minor disadvantages. Though it is not ringing per se, I would classify attaching radio tags in the same bracket and can anybody really think, for example, the recent discovery of the wintering grounds of the Syrian Bald Ibis to be anything but to their advantage? Perhaps there are some elements of the overall ringing programme that serve little benefit, but for each bird ringed, who is to say that might not be the one that provides information that could prove useful to the advancement of knowledge or conservation. As for the 'heart-stopping moments', I don't pretend that birds enjoy the process, but very large numbers do indeed fly directly from release back to feeders, clearly not too traumatic.
Mike Johnston
Well-known member
ocelot said:
Well, according to Websters Dictionary, 'fear' is:
1 a : an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger b (1) : an instance of this emotion (2) : a state marked by this emotion
2 : anxious concern
3 : profound reverence and awe especially toward God
4 : reason for alarm
As you see, they all involve a psychological aspect - an awareness of oneself as an individual and a knowledge that one is in danger. If you take away this psychological aspect, as you do, you are no longer left with 'fear' but with a physiological response to a perceived threat, i.e. 'stress'.
Bernard the cat
Registered User
hannu said:
I do not agree with any scientific research on animals that causes death, injury, suffering or significant distress, irrespective of the benefits, even if it leads to a cure for all forms of cancer. My whole point is that it's not always possible to be 100% consistent with your values and principles given the society we live in. I'd greatly prefer it if medication was developed without the need for any research on animals, and I believe that this will one day be the case. However, in the meantime, I don't really have much choice but to take the medication until alternatives are available. Clearly we all think that the medical experiments carried out on Jews in places like Auschwitz were morally indefensible, but if I was a German citizen in 1942, and my life depended upon taking medication that was passed as safe by testing it on Jews, then I'd take it, as most people would. It doesn't mean I wouldn't abhor what was done to pass the medication as safe, or that I wouldn't pray for an ethical alternative. Sometimes, most of the time in fact, life isn't as black and white as we think.
Bird ringing to Auschwitz in less than 60 posts - that must be a record for BirdForum!
