It just dawned on me when reading Martha Jordan's plea for ethics
that probably no one who she saw walking out in the fields was a
birder. Every time I've been up there there and the geese are near
the roads, many people stop to view them, and I suspect almost anyone
who drives by such a situation does so. They often leave their cars
to get photos, and in fact a few weeks ago Netta and I were sitting
in our car photographing calmly grazing geese at almost pointblank
range, and a whole carload of people got out and just walked right
between our car and the geese, scaring them up and away. They had
tiny point-and-shoot cameras, which of course would be fine to get
the spectacle, if not the individual geese.

So Martha, it may be that none of the people you saw will read your
admonition on tweeters. I only point this out because the admonition
needs to be spread wider. How, I don't know. Local papers? Radio
stations? BirdNote? And then I have the thought that if we crack down
on such people, we're discouraging their appreciation of nature,
different as it is from ours, and we all know how much we need to
reach out to "the rest of them."

Just a few thoughts about a complex issue.

Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382

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