Delete this if you're sick of the banding thread.

Don Wallace's authoritative "quote from a website" was by an Arthur
Morris in a 3/27/09 post on birdphotographers.net. Morris was
disgruntled that photographers are accused of disturbing birds
(another "cat" thread, sorry), and this to him justified pointing
fingers at biologists.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/33031-Mist-Netting-amp-Bird-Banding-Right-or-Wrong

Patti Loesche
Seattle


On Apr 7, 2012, at 6:28 PM, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Don,
>
> You obviously have an agenda here, as you have received a load of
> negative feedback and still persist. it's probable that not many
> minds will be changed in one direction or another, as I wrote
> earlier, but I do find fault with the "facts" you toss around
> loosely. As a museum person, I felt obligated to respond to this one
> quote, as I know few people on tweeters will be able to assess it.
> Your statements are as extreme as any I have read on tweeters, and I
> feel the need to respond for the many people (bird banders and all
> biologists, as nearly as I can tell) who your statements defame.
>
> I spent time with John Williams in Kenya, also years ago when he was
> the ornithologist at the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi, and I find it
> hard to believe he would have said that, as it is not true. I have
> not skinned thousands of birds caught in mist nets but certainly
> many dozens, and I have never seen such a net-pattern bruise. Small
> passerines are very light in weight, and there is no way they would
> have the momentum to do that to themselves by flying into a mist net
> at their normal speed. And the bigger the bird, the tougher it is.
>
> If birds were subject to injuries in that way, baby Wood Ducks
> wouldn't have evolved to jump out of trees and baby murres to jump
> off cliffs. They would surely be bruising their little bodies for
> life if the quote were true. Very rarely a bird will fly into a mist
> net in a way that injures it, and responsible netters, the vast
> majority, are very upset by this. Avian mortality from netting and
> banding is entirely inconsequential in comparison with the ways we
> as a species kill birds, and I'm sure you know them as well as I do.
> Driving, having windows on our houses, stringing up utility wires,
> letting our cats roam outside, producing plastic garbage that is
> ingested by seabirds when it goes to sea. Why aren't you railing
> against the really significant sources of bird mortality? If you do
> any of the things in the previous sentence, I would guess your
> actions have killed more birds than is done by the average bander in
> his or her lifetime.
>
> Anyone else on tweeters who has prepared bird specimens might
> respond here as well. I would be interested in knowing the identity
> of the website from which you got this quote, just to see who else
> is out there trying to discredit one of our more valuable methods of
> learning about birds.
>
> Dennis Paulson
> Seattle
>
>
> On Apr 6, 2012, at 6:19 PM, Don Wallace wrote:
>
>> Here is a quote from a website.
>>
>> I have always thought is odd that biologists have been and are
>> given a free pass. Years ago I met--at Jamaica Bay WR, Queens, NY--
>> John G. Williams, curator or ornithology at the British Museum in
>> Nairobi, and author or co-author of "The Birds of East Africa."
>> Anyway, he shared the following with me: "I have skinned thousands
>> of birds caught in mist nets. Every single one of them, from tiny
>> passerines to large raptors, had bruises on their breasts that
>> matched the pattern of the net that they struck at high speed." A
>> small percentage of birds caught in mist nets die upon impact and
>> still others perish or are injured while being removed or afterwards.
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>
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