Barry,

It seems that you did not hear about the huge flap caused when a Northern
Hawk-Owl was captured and banded in Idaho last winter. Birders were driving
for many miles to see this bird, and for many of them, it was a "lifer".

A local raptor bander, who had all the necessary permits, decided to
capture and band the bird. It is highly likely that no harm
to the bird resulted, and some useful information (on weight, etc.)
may have been obtained. However, much outrage was expressed by birders
when it was first reported that the owl had left the area after being
banded. (It did not.) Some birders wondered out loud what gave the
bander the right to capture and manhandle "their" bird. I was surprised
at the amount of misunderstanding and venom directed toward the bander
and toward bird-banding in general.

So my suggestion would be, when an individual bird is the subject of such
intense public interest as the Discovery Park Snowy Owl, it would
be best to leave it alone, unless it appears ill. I think it would be useful
to get some information on things like the weights of wintering Snowy
Owls, so that we can get an idea of how many of them really are underweight
and food-stressed. Some of the ones in BC this fall definitely are--
I have heard of one near Prince George and one near Tofino (Vancouver
Island) which were very underweight and ended up in rehab centers.
However, I think it would be better to focus banding efforts on some place
like Ocean Shores, where there are far fewer birders who might take offence.


Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Levine, Barron S" <LevineB at bsd405.org>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 10:20 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Ethics question about Snowy Owls and the such


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
_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters