[mou] Another example of what happens when an owl location is posted on the internet....or: Fw: [Birdtalk] FW: [IBLE] Hawk Owl, Northern Shrike - ETHICS...

Tue Nov 27 09:04:16 CST 2007

Hi all,

Here's another example of what a circus the posting of an owl's location becomes....

Richard

Richard L. Wood, Ph. D.
Hastings, MN
rwoodphd at yahoo.com

----- Forwarded Message ----
Message

Following are several very 
disturbing posts from IBLE describing the recent highly unethical behavior of a 
few birders and photogs watching/shooting the visiting Northern Hawk 
Owl near Rexburg, ID.  Deliberately causing this bird to fly just 
to get flight shots is unacceptable.  It is trying to survive the winter 
months far from its natural home and needs all its energy to remain warm and 
obtain food in freezing temperatures.

I sincerely hope there won't be 
any future occurrences of this inconsiderate, stressful behavior.  The 
unfortunate result might be that it would become necessary to exclude sightings 
of rare northern raptors from publication on the bird forums (as was done 
for the Snowy Owl that visited Utah several years ago).

Jim

From: ible at yahoogroups.com 
[mailto:ible at yahoogroups.com] 

Darren, Chad, IBLE, et. al.

I agree with what's been written about over-enthusiastic birders, but the 
behavior that Chad observed is totally unethical and unacceptable. I too feel 
partially responsible as I was the one who "leaked" it to the Pocatello press. I 
should've asked the newspaper reporter to include a paragraph about birding 
ethics to discourage the aforementioned behaviors. I don't know it it'll do any 
good, but I'll ask him to publish a follow-up including such verbiage.

Sorry folks!

Dave Mead

On Nov 26, 2007, at 11:24 AM, Darren Clark wrote:

  Chad and IBLE,

Thanks for sharing your 
  experience. I'm usually not one to get too up in arms about observers flushing 
  an occasional bird to get a better look, but the behavior you describe is 
  unethical, selfish, and perhaps immoral. I've been worried about the bird 
  crossing highway 33 on its own, it certainly doesn't need anybody flushing it 
  into traffic. I encouraged the Rexburg paper to run a story (written first by 
  the Pocatello paper) on the bird and now feel a bit responsible for some of 
  the "enthusiasm" shown the bird. I hope anybody who observes such behavior 
  towards the bird lets the people involved know how you feel.

    To: 
    ible at yahoogroups.
com

    On 11/23 I went to Beaver Dick 
    park to see the hawk owl. It was there, being photographed (harassed) 
    by three photographers who followed it from tree to tree, making owl 
    and rodent sounds and otherwise bothering it. It was neat to see the 
    owl, and to watch it hunt voles (very successful at that), but not 
    so neat to see the people chasing it around, including one young 
    person whose parents had the kid climb the tree the owl was in. One 
    photographer approached the owl in a tree as  it landed next to Hwy 33, 
    causing it to fly out in the road, nearly 
getting hit.  Across Hwy 33, I observed the 
    owl for some time sitting on a telephone pole, where it was repeatedly 
    buzzed by a very light colored Northern  Shrike. The owl didn't seem to 
    mind much, but the shrike was clearly  agitated. 
It's great to see the owl, but 
    people need to use a little common sense  around the owl and other 
    people.  

.

Thanks a lot folks.  The reason I originally posted a 
reminder to use caution and consider the welfare of the bird first is because I 
watched someone walk right up to the bird and flush it, with camera pointed at 
it, presumably to capture a flight shot.  That person is well know and 
highly regarded among birders and he knew better.  When he realized that I 
was there to look at the bird he apologized, saying that he didn't realize I was 
a birder.  Would it have been OK if no one had seen him?  It's not 
about the birders and I don't care about my lost opportunity to view the bird on 
an advantageous perch.  I was concerned about the bird being constantly 
harassed.  Maybe that point wasn't made obvious enough?  It's not 
about someone not seeing the bird it's about protecting the owl.  I was 
disappointed that this sighting got posted in a public forum in the first place 
but it was already too late at that point.  Owls generate a huge amount of 
interest as evidenced by the fact that someone has seen this individual almost 
every day since it was first reported more than two weeks ago, and the four or 
five carloads of birders every weekend for two months looking for the Rexburg 
Snowy Owls.  If only one or two people went to see it flushing it wouldn't 
be that big a deal for the bird (just for the record I wouldn't flush it on 
purpose then either).  But with all the pressure this bird is receiving 
it's a whole different story.  Can we afford to continue to flush this bird 
over and over?  Just for a stupid photograph?  I too enjoy taking 
photos of birds so I understand the desire to get close.  But that's not a 
good reason, in my opinion, to flush a wintering bird like this over and 
over.  And what really pisses me off is that this bird is exceedingly 
cooperative.  You can get very close and capture excellent photos, even 
with point and shoot digital cameras, so there's no need to push the bird to the 
point where it flushes.  If you want a flight shot that badly then just 
wait for the bird to fly on its own.  Let's use a little common sense and 
let this bird do its thing without unnecessary interference from us.  

I propose that we collect names (or make/model of car and license 
plate-someone will know who it is) from people exhibiting such behavior and post 
them on this forum so everyone knows who not to tell about vulnerable birds in 
the future.  I'll bet the same people that cause these problems by showing 
a total disregard for the welfare of the bird will be the first ones to bitch 
when they find out about the next Snowy or Hawk-Owl long after it's left the 
area.  

Richard L. Wood, Ph. D.
Hastings, MN
rwoodphd at yahoo.com

      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20071127/da48e38d/attachment-0001.html 