Mis-handling of raptors by ringers/banders? (1 Viewer)

Black Wheatear said:

I might well ask you the same question! It would be more helpful if you could engage your brain before you start typing on your keyboard. We are talking about threads of a technical nature where ringers are asked by their fellow ringers for advice or opinions, where or how does that involve you?

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Poecile said:

Photos are merely pictures showing how the bird is being held, they are not evidence that the bird is being harmed (how can you see wing strain, fractured metacarpals in a photo?).
and what are these experiences? Can you elaborate? Have you passed this on to the BTO to consider in their guidelines?I disagree - if a handling technique has harmed a bird -and we're talking some kind of wing or body damage here, then at least some of them would not have flown on release, they'd have 'flopped' with a fractured furculum wing strain or something. Plenty of raptors have been studied intensively - sparrowhawk and mauritius kestrel and barn owl to name a few off the top of my head. Population studies such as these would clearly show if an individual disappeared or was in difficulty soon after handling, and warning bells would be going off in the ringers concerned. So, there would be at least some records of birds being crippled to some extent during ringing, and possibly some records of increased mortality during population studies.

the fact that no birds were reported crippled during ringing, and no increased mortality was seen in populations studies would be a hint...but then to use proof of that kind of negative would rule out all ringing - there is no data that any handling technique results in no harm.
No, because they'd get reported to the ringing authorities (such as the BTO) as casulaties, if there was an obvious tangible problem. Unless the ringers were burying such evidence the world over, which is hard to credit.

I'll say again, we've got posters saying they've seen or have the evidence ("it's in the photo!"), but nobody has shown me evidence of a damaged bird yet

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The evidence that you have cited is not really good enough to back up what you say. To say that there is evidence from maritius, barn owls, suggests that the methods that they use have not caused any appreciable effects on the measured parameters, that is ok. Most studies on ringing find similar results.
I am not arguing about that. They do not use such techniques in the first place


To say that these particular handling techniques do not cause appreciable effects you would need a totally different study. You would need a group of birds handled in this way, released and then recaptured somehow (by resighting, re capture etc) and you would need a group of the same birds in the same location caught and handled using the BTO or the like recommended techniques to directly compare.

Population studies would not show you if individuals were not seen again, they work on means, not individuals. To show any small effect would need the exact handling technique to be noted and a relationship examined.

It is this data that probably does not exist and that you would need to 'prove harm'. Just because no studies have reported handling effects is a credit to these studies, and i doubt very much that many of these (definately the maritius kestrel when i have seen this species being ringed) have used the
techniques in question.

The studies cited can only study the birds that have been captured- and thus they are all subject to the same handling (roughly) and so you would not expect any subset to show the effects that you mention at all, as they have been treated the same.



Regarding my experiences, i would say that most ringers can tell when a bird in unduly stressed (indeed if they ring in the UK they must be able to do this to get an A permit (and know the signs to get a C permit)) and this is what i have seen, birds handled in this manner showing signs of stress and reluctance to fly off when released, sitting there fluffed up for 15 minutes before flying off etc. I have also seen primaries damaged by using this one handed technique, as i have stated several posts back. This is enough evidence for me and indeed is good evidence. The techniques that i have seen causing these issues are the wing displaying techniques and the one handed holding technique.
I have never seen either of these techniques used in the UK (therefore telling the BTO will not be very useful). only abroad. I think that this should be the taregt audience of this thread. as well as keeping UK ringers aware of different techniques.

Indeed if these techniques are so good- as useful for taking record shots of rarities, then we can even adopt them for ourselves!

So ask the question, how many banders/ ringers are happy to use the two techniques illustrated in a routine manner?

I will stick to my methods that i have yet to seen stress or strain on any bird that i have handled.


I would suggest that ringing the larger birds whilst still in the bag and taking a leg out is perhaps the best way to ring raptors, owls etc. Taking photos of wings etc, if it is necessary, then use the standard techniques illustrated in many ringing guides and organisations such as SAFRING, BTO etc of the standard leg hold, restraining one wing and extending the other by the main joint would be the optimum. Where the birds is very lage then two people should assist wherever possible.


Re the use of photos as evidence. I do think that they are very important for several reasons:

-They show a lot about the birds condition,
-They may show feather loss or feather damage
-By collating such pictures may indicate how widespread such techniques may be in the banding worl

Of course they cannot show damage under the wing, but they do show both birds with undamaged feather and birds with damaged feathers very well. As such they are very good evidence in both directions- that some birds handled have feathers in perfect looking condition and that others do not

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valley boy said:

The person who started this thread was a ringer , but hadnt made it clear at that point, reread your first post in response to his question- get off the high horse fella. Where it involves me is that i have an interest in bird welfare and lets face it netting and handling birds can SOMETIMES (note that word)cause damage to birds. As for the technical aspect of these threads its pretty easy to follow, it aint rocket science

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Black Wheatear said:

General threads concerning ringing is fair game for all forumers, no question. My remark referred to ‘when a ringer asks other ringers for an opinion or to discuss a particular technical point’. If a thread is directed at other ringers in such a way, then how can others contribute unless they are a ringer and/or have the necessary experience? It may not be rocket science, but to give a useful and meaningful response to such a request in these circumstances requires both knowledge and experience i.e. another ringer.

There are examples (not this thread) of threads here where they become hi-jacked by those seeking to express opinions that bear no relation to the original subject. I believe it to be a reasonable question to ask other ringers whether it might be better to discuss ‘technical’ issues on a membership sub-forum. Of course topics related to general ringing issues and interest must remain open for all. It is a question to other ringers and one that of course would need approval from those responsible for running birdforum.

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Poecile said:

couple of points to address from that:

of course population studies work on individuals. If they worked on means, it would not be necessary to have uniquely-coded rings for EACH bird for a start. Or colour-ringing. If you are monitoring a population, you often know every individual in your study area. So you will be very aware if/when it disappears. Analyses may work on means, but data collection is at the individual level. IPMR doesn't ask for mean ringing data, it asks for individual.
.

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JedHarrison said:

To prove damage one way or another you need mean results, you will need a group of birds (individuals) that has a mean different response to another group (for the simplest of analyses)

Results from individuals are anecdotes, not evidence as you would require it.
hence why i suggested that it would be next to impossible to gather such data


We cannot simple go by the rules that everything ok unless we have a great big study showing otherwise, as you say this would be immoral to gather sufficient data. so the only way to deal with this is by using anecdotes and collecting them together and the discussing them.... If we had hard evidence there would be not much need for a debate on techniques.

It does however seem that there are only a few posters showing concerns or offering their opinions on the best technique, so i guess it is a bit dull to continue with this non-discussion.

I'm done anyway..

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Poecile said:

To be fair, Peter, if ringers want to go and chat in private then they can use the BTO ringer's forums. Birdforum is, and should be, an open forum.

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JedHarrison said:

I have never seen either of these techniques used in the UK (therefore telling the BTO will not be very useful). only abroad. I think that this should be the taregt audience of this thread. as well as keeping UK ringers aware of different techniques.

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Ken Hindmarch said:

I fully agree with the post. The people handling the birds look uneasy and there are already many ruffled feathers. It is necessary to take a few scratches to ensure the bird is not damaged.

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