Oh boy, here we go again! For one thing, Don Wallace and Liz Brown are going by the pretense that banding kills birds, an opinion I view with much suspicion. If we are to improve things for Dippers or any other birds, we must collect data on them to determine a plan of action to help them out. That has to be the purpose of banding.

As for playing tapes to lure birds into view, Liz has a point here, as such a practice does not have an end result of benefitting the birds. However, even here there is a gray area as to how much harm it actually does. I can certainly agree that "baiting" birds with sound recordings should not be done with endangered species.

Barry Ulman
Bellingham, WA.


On Jun 25, 2012, at 9:36 PM, lized01 at comcast.net wrote:

> Hi Tweeters: I really hope someone responds to the righteous pleas from Don Wallace to remove the bands that are injuring the beautiful dippers he chronicles. At some point, science must sometimes give way to compassion. There's got to be a bander who realizes killing the test subjects defeats the purpose, which is supposed to be bird conservation.
>
>
> Liz Brown
> Pilchuck Audubon member
> Edmonds, Wash.
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