Subject: Tweeters caught in apparent double-standard
Date: Feb 27 10:25:24 1996
From: "M. Smith" - whimbrel at u.washington.edu



Regarding the Great Gray Owl
> the area. Maybe now that it is radio tagged it assumes it should move
> around a bit to give technology a chance to succeed.

OK tweets, it's been a few days now since the Great Gray was
radio-tagged. Those of you who threw up such a commotion about the
suggestion of catching and banding the CC Longspur, why aren't you
yelling and screaming about this act? Personally, I have no problem with
the radio-tagging of this owl, but I want to know why some people
consider this as OK, while banding the longspur was not. Both acts will
provide an additional small amount of data, yet neither will probably
result in any sort of profound or publishable results (unless something
really weird happens). What's the difference? Do some people think that
radio-tagging an animal is 'real' research, while determining the sex and
age of one isn't? If so, I hate to break it to you, but radio-tagging is
just a tool (as is banding, sexing, etc.), and has little bearing on how
'good' the research is.

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html