Hi,

We just spent the afternoon at Boundary Bay. When we got there after noon,
virtually everyone was on the dike and 3 owls were very close up. They were
completely unconcerned about the cameras, kids, dogs, what have you, on the
dike. We counted up to 17 out on the flats. We walked further west along
the dike and found some juvenile eagles, harriers, green-wing teal, and
short-eared owls When we walked back to where the owls were, many people
had ventured out into the flats. This included binocular-ed,
point-shooters, and big guns in spite of the number of signs requesting you
stay on the "trail". (I believe this to be a bit ambiguous since there are
trails out into the flats). It looked like someone decided to go out and
then others decided that since he was out then it must be OK.

About 4:30p a woman from the Owl Rehabilitation Society up the road was
seen walking out to the various groups and very kindly asking them to
retreat back to the dike. She was very successful in doing so. I talked
to her and she said that two owls had been brought in recently suffering
from an ailment that they attribute to stress (sorry, she gave a name, but
I don't recall it). They were both underweight and both owls died.
Therefore, they are now going out on a regular basis to request that
people stay on the dike and allow the owls to hunt normally.

I was very impressed with how she was able to express their concern and
that people responded reasonably.

I was admittedly uncertain about making this trip due to all the uproar and
was afraid that I would have eggs thrown at me if I carried my camera. :)
After this afternoon, I am so glad I came and I am looking forward to
tomorrow morning. Hopefully, there will be a bit more sun and less
wind/rain.

- Tom Talbott
http://plus.tomtalbottjr.com

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Monica Van der Vieren <
mvanderv4137 at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> And in the interest of balance, my apologies for irony in email suggestion
> "Bird Safe Certification"- it is perhaps an inside joke since I live in a
> farming area where "Salmon Safe" can mean a number of interesting things
> depending on who is watching. I forget- irony in email is tough since you
> are not there conveying it with a wry smile!
>
>
>
> I think a lot of us are not condemning photographers, which I try to be as
> an amateur, or as per my earlier post, those with long lenses. It's not
> the not the nature of the profession, hobby or sport that determines
> whether someone will be respectful of wildlife and people. I have toiled
> shoulder to shoulder planting habitat in the winter mud with hunters and
> fishermen and I know what conservation means to them. And I fish, and know
> great sportsmen with fine ethics. But we too get the shooting after dark
> and before dawn, the fishing at night with lights, etc. The behavior of
> some boaters on the Snohomish River during pink salmon season last fall was
> unbelievably outrageous and rude toward others fishing (and I cleaned piles
> of human waste from the beach on my property during that time- blech, get a
> bucket for the boat!). It's frustrating and makes you angry, but the
> solution certainly isn't to broad-brush condemn every practitioner of the
> sport.
>
>
>
> So what to do about those things, and the dolt throwing stuff at the
> Boundary Bay owls while they were roosting?
>
>
>
> As I mentioned before, it's individual conscience and ethics, in my
> opinion, that determines whether people behave with thoughtfulness and
> responsibility. And Ted's right that you can't regulate or certify that,
> and there aren't enough enforcement folks out there anymore to prevent mass
> poaching across the nation, much less harrassment of birds. So I guess the
> question is bigger than owls or ducks or fish, isn't it?
>
>
>
> Monica Van der Vieren
>
> Snohomish, WA
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Guy McWethy **
> Sent: Feb 8, 2012 10:08 AM
> To: Tweeters **
> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Photographer Maddness?
>
> ****
> Hey Shawn,
> like a lot of activities, it only takes one or 2 bad apples to cause 99%
> of the problems.
> But these 1 or 2 folks are doing things so aggregious, that the spill-over
> is hitting those of you that are not.
> it is the same principle as 1 jerk hunter poaching a Grizzley bear, or
> shooting ducks out of season, or taking more than his limit, ruining the
> reputation of all hunters. 99% of them are law abiding and help
> conservation efforts.
> And if a group can not police itself, the rest of us affected by the
> behaviour start screeching.
>
> The sign on Damon Point was put up to help inform, not enforce. It may
> help alleviate ignorant disturbances to the birds, but will certainly not
> stop folks who do not care.
>
> As for whether flushing owls effects their survival or not, the jury is
> still out. No studies I know of have been definative. Intuitively, if an
> owl is not doing well, and it has to burn excess energy flying away, it has
> less chance of survival. If it IS doing well, and has plenty of food, it
> would be fine. The question is, how do WE tell the difference? And what
> is the threshold? If an owl hunts all night and does not make a kill,
> then gets chased all day by a continuous procession of people getting too
> close and causing it to fly and burn much needed energy, does that lower
> its chances? Certainly. How can we tell? We can't, really. And one
> person disturbing an owl is probably not a problem. But the 8th time that
> owl is disturbed by the end of the day?
>
> And consider that these birds are surviving down here until the spring,
> when they have to fly that 3000 miles back to the tundra. They are trying
> to lay on reserves so they can do that. So what if they are harrassed, and
> not able to lay in those reserves? They could be fine while they are
> here, then drop dead on the way back north. We would never know. This is
> actually simnilar to the problem facing Red Knots on the east coast, and
> Deleware Bay. They do not die there, but they can not lay on enough fat to
> make it north to their breeding grounds and just do not show up, having
> died along the way.
>
> In the face of not knowing for sure, some of us are choosing the err on
> the side of caution, and try very hard not to let our desires to get a
> close look, or the perfect picture, to potentially cause harm to these
> visitors from the far north. Others have chosen otherwise. Some are just
> un-informed about such issues.
>
> The extremes of both sides of this issue get the most attention, of
> course. The photgapher running after an owl and repeatedly fushing it and
> harrassing it is definitely a worst case, and paints all photographers with
> a negative light. Those of us that do have strong feelings about helping
> preserve these owls, get upset and start yelling.
>
> How we each respond to such events says more about ourselves, than about
> the owls ....
>
> Guy McWethy
> Renton, WA
> mailto: lguy_mcw at yahoo.com
> *From:* Shawn McCully <shawn at jacobsonlegal.com>
> *To:* Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 8, 2012 7:46 AM
> *Subject:* [Tweeters] Photographer Maddness?
>
> I have endured the barrage of crazy tweeters emails from people
> spending countless hours blasting photographers on here for months now.
> People are creating signs, asking for restrictions, and now a program you
> have to sign up for when you buy a big lens...lol. I don?t know if it?s
> jealousy or otherwise, but there is clearly a divide amongst birders who
> photograph and those that just observe. However, I?m not sure if this
> divide is real. I?ve been out photographing birds and have never been
> commented at by any birder that what I was doing was wrong in some way. Do
> these people wait to get home and then vent, after thinking about it for a
> while, on the computer at an audience that they think will better receive
> their anti photographer comments? Don?t you have anything better to do?
> Do you know birds are actually killed by mis-identification from hunters,
> from combines harvesting wheat, etc. Would your time be better spent
> focusing on these issues? I won?t make excuses for some of the behavior
> that goes on but I ask you to put it in perspective. Did any owl at
> Boundary Bay die from a photographers conduct yet? There is zero evidence
> that I?ve seen that making an owl open their eyes by waving hands at them
> can or does kill them. This is an unusual year where there are lots of
> owls, people, and they are packed in a small area. Just put it in
> perspective this is a small segment of snowy owl populations and, despite
> whatever conduct they have endured, none have been injured. Do we keep
> restricting where people go, what they can do, and curtail things in life
> until we can?t do anything? Can you put the eruption of snowy owls in
> perspective before blasting on a public listserve?
>
> Again, the only issues I saw when I visited the site was from a couple of
> point and shoot photographers that had to get close and continually flushed
> the owls. All the ?big lens? guys were staying at decent distances. Even
> then, I didn?t say anything because I don?t really care. So they flushed a
> few owls, big deal. They just glided 100 yards and perched up again,
> uninjured. They just flew 3000 miles but they can?t glide 100 yards?
> Maybe you should focus on the small lens or point and shoot crowd... Maybe
> if you have a point and shoot camera you need to sign up on a program to
> know how to use them ethically? Do you get the sarcasm?
>
> Shawn M
> Bellevue, WA
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> ****
>
>
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