Dennis, who must be bored today 'cause he's posting a lot, sez:

>What we really need are a lot of banded/marked Snowy Owls to see how much
>truth there is in this idea. Capturing the owls would allow weighing them
>(to see if they "arrive in poor health"), marking or radiotagging them
>would allow us to follow their survival, and repeat capturing would allow
>weighing over the winter to see how they fluctuate in weight.

Snowies would be ideal candidates for a satellite transmitter. They've
now reached the size that they are barely light enough to consider
for use on a big healthy female Cooper's hawk. Snowies are so large
that a larger battery could be used, thus providing either more frequent
sampling or longer life. Of course, currently they cost $2,500 a piece,
but who knows, maybe by next year you'll be able to buy 'em at Radio
Shack!

I wonder how one goes about developing a mass market for stuff like
this? The cost is only so high due to low volume and the fact they're
individually handmade. You'd think that the cost could get down to
$25-$50, in which case we could stick a hundred or so on Coops during
fall migration and get some real data. Or, one could make an effort
to track every snowy in Oregon and Washington during a busy year like
this one and have some hope of building a data base that eventually
could be used of for statistical analysis.

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://www.xxxpdx.com/~dhogaza