Michelle: Well said. Lord knows we need more like you.

There are lots of mighty fine folks among birders. No question about that. Even among bird golfers. But you must plow something back in to the resource rather than just take, take, take.

As for what to do? Well, I'll get on my soapbox and make some suggestions.

Get involved where possible. Make the effort instead of just sitting your hands and bellyache.. Don't be afraid of developers and their lawyers, politicians, local governments etc when they are proposing things very detrimental to wildlife. But --if you do, be able to back up what you say with sound data otherwise your dismissed as a radical. Get data from your state or federal wildlife agencies.

Volunteer to help wildlife agencies. They always happy to have help, especially when they are constrained by inadequate funds. Audubon has a program called ARK - Audubon Refuge Keepers- designed to furnish volunteer help for wildlfe refuges.
You'll find out a lot about wildlife that way.

Audubon and the National Wildlife Federation keeps you up to date what's going on nationally and local chapters on local events. You can pick and choose on issues. Ducks Unlimited is another organization that has a number of wildlife refuges.
Join the Washington Ornithological Society.

Those of you with literary bent may wish to write periodically or occasionally aricles about birds. Bug some of the so-called outdoor reporters to have more articles about wildlife in general rather than only consumptive uses of wildlife by hunting or fishing. Look at the average newspaper - millions of words about about sports. Some of the only statistics they don't write about is how many times a player spits or
scatches himself.

As a wildlife watcher, you aren't exactly in the minority because nationally, according to the 1996 Survey of Receational Uses of Wildlife, people engaged in wildlife watching exceeded 62.9 million nationally and spent $29.2 billion. Hunters $2l billion and anglers $39 billion. But wildlife watchers, mainly of birds, is a noncomsumptive use to be used over and over again. Copies of the Survey may be obtained from state
and federal wildlife agencies. Not calculated was the tremendous value of birds to humans by the consumption of harmful insects, arthropods, etc Ouch, smack! Gol derned mosquito and pesky fly! .And think, you could be conserving a resource to be enjoyed by your children, grandchildren, etc..

'Nuff said. Time to get off the soapbox.

Eugene Kridler
Broken down (yep) olde 80 year old bugologist.






MBlanchrd at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated Wed, 1 Mar 2000 10:33:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, cametobe at ix.netcom.com writes:
>
> > But where do you fit tolerance for your own species
> > into your huge resume? Criticizing people only
> > sparks more criticism, as you may have noticed.
> > Maybe you could instead share useful and specific
> > info about how people could make a difference.
> >
> > --Rebecca, Northgate, Seattle
>
> Rebecca, Gene is defending himself against kneejerk reaction to what that someone percieved as criticism.
>
> Watching the destruction of habitat and the environment on the whole and idly standing by, NOT CRITICIZING the perpetrators of the destruction, is how we got in this mess in the first place.
>
> Too much complacency (so what, it's only a ugly little Guam rail. I'll never see them here. ) and greed (By god, my daddy got rich cutting old growth trees, my granddaddy got rich cutting old growth trees, I'M gonna cut old growth trees and make lots of money selling them to the Japanese.)without criticism results in what we have now......endangered species, loss of habitat, degradation of the resources we have left.
>
> What will happen, Rebecca, when the city or county or whatever comes into YOUR backyard and wants to cut the trees because they're a threat to the new powerline, orsites a huge new landfill in behind it? Will you stand complacent? Will you accept it as inevitable and accept it gracefully? Or will you criticize and fight it?
> Or will you merely move?
>
> As for acquiring useful information as to how one can make a difference, why don't you display a little tolerance yourself and ASK Gene instead of criticizing him?
>
> Michelle Blanchard
> MBlanchrd at aol.com