Jack Bowling expresses a common concern among bird-lovers as well as
ornithologists. There are times when I attend scientific meetings that I am
shocked at some of the things people do to other animals in the name of
science as well. The one example that sticks in my mind was a researcher
that was studying "stress" in pigeons (Rock Doves to the AOU) and was
locking them in small, dark boxes and blasting them with loud rock music. I
found the study rather inhumane and uninformative. That would be clearly
stressful to a human but wouldn't a constantly attacking falcon be more
stressful to a pigeon and what does stress in pigeons have to do with stress
in humans?

However, times are changing. The study you were citing was
conducted in 1982. I don't think you could perform that experiment at most
universities in 1998. At Washington State, in order to use vertebrate
animal subjects, whether they are grizzly bears, birds, or frogs, you must
have approval from an animal use committee before the animals arrive on
campus. This includes animals in teaching labs as well as research. The
form is eight pages long, outlining how you will care for the animals, how
they will be treated if they are injured or ill and how they will be
"euthanized" or disposed of if they are to survive the procedure. The
committee consists of veterinarians, animal care personnel, and other
concerned citizens. If they decide your experiment isn't scientifically
important or is just too inhumane, they will not accept it and you cannot do
the experiment. If you do the experiment, you get into big trouble. Even
if your experiment isn't on WSU land, you still have to go through the
animal use committee.

The AOU has recently published a set of guidelines for the handling
and treatment of birds both in the wild and in the laboratory. I'll confess
that I haven't read it but it is the standard for ornithologists. I think
most ornithologists are concerned with their subjects and try to make their
suffering as short as possible when it is necessary to inflict any sort of
pain or discomfort (such as blood samples, etc.) Few people like to see
animals suffer (and those people are usually weeded out).

My research isn't subject to the animal use committee review because
I never touch the birds I study. I conduct point counts only so my only
animal concerns are the same as anyone walking through the woods. I try to
keep my disturbance to the minimum.

The view from a university
Deb Beutler



At 06:28 20/5/98 PST, you wrote:
>Poring through the latest batch of monographs in the "Birds of North America"
>project, I spied this gem from the "Metabolism and Temperature Regulation"
>section of the clark's Nutcracker account:
>
>"...nutcracker at -65C in laboratory maintained oxygen consumption of 7.4
>ml/g/h (42.0 W/kg) for 55 min (M. L. Laudenslager and Diana F. Tomback unpubl.,
>cited in: Tomback, D. F. 1982. Dispersal of whitebark pine seeds by Clark's
>Nutcracker: a mutualism hypothesis. J. Anim. Ecol. 51: 451-467)."
>
>Needless to say, the likely demise of the bird was not detailed. Now call me
>just a lily-livered liberal eco-whacko, but I cannot accept any
justification of
>freeze-drying a wired up Clark's Nutcracker in the name of science. Makes me
>shudder at what must be going on in those quiet university backrooms.
>
> - Jack
>
>
>
>==========================
>Jack Bowling
>Prince George, BC
>jbowling at direct.ca
>
>

Deb Beutler
Department of Zoology
P.O. Box 644236
Washington State University
Pullman (Whitman Co.), WA 99164-4236
dbeutler at wsunix.wsu.edu