Martyn and tweets,
I resisted for a while in replying as I don't believe in cluttering up the
list on such threads. However I have a few points to make, while I admire
the passion to save birds, afterall if we don't care about conservation of
species, how can one really care about those species? However.... a few
points:
1) Because we as humans have altered the natural environment to say that
hunting and management is to not care about those species or birds lives, I
would argue the reverse. When we allow some populations to go to extreme
levels (some of the snow goose populations are a classic point), without
management and a hunting season, those species keep expanding and eventually
destroy most of their environment and eventually will likely lead to a crash
only after much damage has been done to that species, other impacted species
and finally to the ecosystem. By the way, I've never hunted myself. Many
biologists though do hunt and many are very passionate conservationists, not
all hunters are the redneck backwoods types, some but not all and probably
not most.
2) Claiming that "non-natives deserve to be conserved as well". As most
native species go, this is a direct slap in the face to them, would you or
others like to go tell the countless species affected (often to extinction
or near extinction) that these foreign species affecting their populations
have equal "rights" to these native species? Do species such as Starlings,
House Sparrows etc.. have their subtle beauty, of course. Most birds or
animals each have their own beauty if one looks at them; but to argue that
these species are just as important as the native species they displace and
that nothing should be done to manage these species is a direct slap to the
native species you and others claim to love as well.
3) Finally while your passion is admirable, I agree with other posters that
is often without fact and misdirected... I had a hard time believing that
chickadees were actually as you claim. Pasted below are the results from the
Omaha, NE count for Black-capped Chickadees from the 89th CBC to the 103rd,
I see no large changes in abundance and certainly wouldn't refer to over 400
chickadees on a CBC circle as "Nebraska it is hard to
find a crow or a chickadee, a few years ago there were many, look at the
websites to confirm this!!".... I did look, maybe you can share with us if
you have different sources? In fact on the 102nd count American Crow was
tagged as "UH" which means an unusually high count of this species...


Black-capped Chickadee-89th CBC to 103rd
502 657 238 302 421 318 421 315 421 300 306 353 297
373 470


American Crow 89th CBC to 103rd
246 460 197 220 149 230 445 552 329 633 441 251
616 758 223



I'd like to close in saying, passion for conservation is great; however, one
of my greatest pet peeves ever has been people who shout for conservation
while information that is without basis and most if not all inherently
wrong. Many people (in the non birding or scientific community) do not know
which opinion is based on fact and which is not. We should make every effort
to make our statements with knowledge and yes those passion without
rationale can be very damaging. Keep the passion just make sure that the
comments are based on the best knowledge we have to conserve and protect
species.
Passing misinformation can often be more damaging than to have never spoke
in the first place!

Hoping that maybe we can move back to better threads and leave this
behind....

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA