Hi Tweets,

Tom Schooley writes, re getting licences to pay for birding:

>Ruth's note below is well taken. As a point of clarification, I believe
>the Skagit Wildlife Recreation Area is state property, not federal. The
>conservation license is needed for state lands, such as Skagit. A Federal
>Duck Stamp is needed on federal wildlife refuges such as Nisqually, or
>Dungeness Spit.

This is a good point of information for any BC/Canadian birders coming to
see this bird. In BC, hunters and birders compete in the same spaces on
Crown (i.e., government) land for free--well, actually birders for free, and
the hunters paying for the privilege--as the idea of refuges as places where
hunters can shoot birds has never really caught on, for some odd reason
rooted perhaps in the semantics. In BC at least, and for the time being,
refuges protect them. Of course, in the absence of a well-organised,
well-financed birding lobby to counter an existing well-organised and
well-funded hunting lobby, and proponents of the 'game-management' model of
administration still fairly prevalent in the relevant government
departments, all it would take is a sufficiently persuadable provincial
government to change all that.

>This topic was thoroughly discussed a couple months ago, so we need not
>rehash it now. (Unless, of course, you really want to.)

Maybe, maybe not, so let's leave the issue of further discussion an open
one; there's always the possibility of a new perspective or viewpoint. It's
a good reminder of what was a crackling good discussion, though. Thanks.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)