Subject: [Tweeters] Ethics question about Snowy Owls and the such
Date: Dec 5 10:20:05 2005
From: Levine, Barron S - LevineB at bsd405.org


Tweeters,
A question for the group if time permits. If this is not an appropriate venue for such an issue, would someone be kind enough to let me know.
Sunday at Discovery park Kate and I brought some non-birding friends and their 2 daughters (aged 5 and 3) to look at the Snowy Owl that has been present for the last week or so. Our group and all that passed by were thrilled at the sight of such a wonderful bird. On our way out of the park, there was a group of people ( a park ranger among them) who were "bandying" about the idea of trapping the bird and banding it. The ranger asked what the other people who were watching the bird thought about this idea. All said they were against it, with various salient comments being made about the reasoning for doing this. The park ranger decided against banding the bird based on what the group had to say. Definitely was nicely done on her part.
The ethics questions is, when is it appropriate to band a bird like this owl? This is not necessarily a broad question about the ethics of banding birds in the first place. That might open up a whole can of worms that I'm not asking us to tackle. Given that for so many people (my friends included) this is a great opportunity to introduce people to the wonders of birding, would banding this bird have enough benefit to offset the possible negative repercussions?
Again hope this is within the boundaries of this group. Thanks

Barry Levine
Seattle
levineb at bsd405.org