14 replies to this topic

[zoutedrop]

It won't be long before you get a call from your missing lifebird........

http://online.wsj.co...wsj_share_email

[Bigfoot]

WOW. Mitch and IBird get a mention in the Wall Street Journal.

Bigfoot

[lonestranger]

It won't be long before you get a call from your missing lifebird........

http://online.wsj.co...wsj_share_email

That's happening already, isn't it, zoutedrop? I was sure I read somewhere that a group of very rare birds have already signed up for the digital age. They want to send out notifications where they're hiding just so that we can all participate in the demise of their species by flocking to their last suitable habitat and interupting their mating, nesting, feeding, and sleeping patterns.

Sorry, I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, but I am becoming more and more aware of how invasive my love for nature is on the very nature that I love so much. When too many people start enjoying the same natural space that I'm enjoying, well, it becomes less natural and less enjoyable for me. If I don't like to share my piece of nature with other nature lovers, I have to wonder how much the wildlife that actually lives there likes it. With our numbers growing in leaps and bounds, us birders could seriously pose a threat to the very birds we love watching. Today's digital technology just might speed up what we hope will never happen.

[cabirds]

Because of how"unnatural" humans are, right?

Designed in some alien lab and built from unobtanium which, as we all know, has a half life of inf^inf with no degradeability
in this biosphere.

[lonestranger]

Designed in some alien lab and built from unobtanium which, as we all know, has a half life of inf^inf with no degradeability
in this biosphere.

That's a good way of looking at the wildlife's perspective of our electronic devices, cabirds. They will make it so much easier for us to make the wilderness a little bit less wild just by our being there. More devices sharing info on wildlife will create more interest in said wildlife, and attract more and more people that want to share in the viewing of said wildlife. If I told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, etc, etc, at what point does two people sharing something beautiful turn into an ugly crowded parking lot being built in the middle of the wilderness?

Algonquin provincial park is a prime example, they keep adding more trails into the wilderness because there's not enough parking at the existing trails due to the park's popularity of nature lovers from all over the world. Trails that were seldom traveled 20-30 years ago now have dozens of tour buses stop by on a daily basis. The more popular the park becomes to people, the less popular the park will be to the wildlife that lives there. Maybe my logic is flawed, maybe the wilderness thrives when large numbers of people congregate in the wild, and maybe the use of electronic devices won't increase the popularity of those rare bird sightings and increase the number of people congregating to see these rarer birds.

Again,...if I told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends.................

[cabirds]

> and attract more and more people that want to share in the viewing of said wildlife.

I thought all of our park systems and support systems for open-space were failing because the majority of people exhibit no interest in viewing of said wildlife?

So instead of "making it cool", we're better off just paving over it and building an office plaza?

It's like the "theory" that my soft rubber-soled 9in x 5in hiking boots carrying 155lbs are somehow more damaging to the environment than pointy-hooved 250lb deer supported on rock-hard razor-sharp 3in x 1in hoof plates. The physics don't work, but don't try to confuse any of the "anti-humans" with things like psi's and kilograms and penetrative depths... "Oh, but the deer are NATURAL!" [boggle]

> Again,...if I told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends..........

Then the Audubon wouldn't be begging me for even more money three times a week?

[zoutedrop]

I have done some thinking along these lines. Fully understand the perspective. Granted a different time, but what would be said if I did Audubon actions today (killing birds to study them)? Do you really think that a duck hunter (generally speaking) IDs the bird before shooting? Some do surely, but most? Kids with BB guns? Cars? Windows and antennas.... We will be 10 billion by the year 2050. It is really a reach to think that birding, at any level, competes with habitat loss. I spent three weeks in close proximity to a Gila family. The kids fledged, everything is fine. When I first started birding it took me three months to get a Gila in my backyard. Now I have a family nesting in my yard and neighbors complaining about the damage being done to homes by the many woodpeckers that we have. I have two woodpecker feeders plus citrus (daily) that they love. I have gotten 15 hummers at one time during migration (4 feeders). Hummer range and migration is changing due to hummer feeders. My winter Cooper's loves my ground feeder. In mid summer I have upwards of 150 grackles in my trees each night all screaming. I really think that if everyone would make there yards more bird friendly we could potentially make a positive impact. My sharing my hobby through pictures with my friends has had a lot of good feedback and increased appreciation.

[lonestranger]

I feel like I owe you an apology, cabirds, but I can't figure out what for. It feels like I have offended you and if I have, as you know, it's your choice to be offended, but it was not my intention to offend anyone. I was trying to express my awareness of the impact I have on the wilderness and wildlife around me, and I tried to relate it to the article regarding the electronic devices. When I was in my twenties, I would drive for 4 hours towards northern Ontario so I could get away from all the people and get back to nature by canoeing out into the wilderness. Now that I am in my fifties I have to drive 6 hours into northern Ontario and still can't achieve the same serenity because of the sheer numbers of nature lovers looking to get away from it all. I constantly ask myself if I am the one that's crowding the once serene habitat, or if it's all the other ones that are crowding the area.

I know that anytime I am walking a nature trail, or canoeing along a shoreline, I may disturb the very nature I've come to observe. Logic tells me that the more the trail is used or the more the shoreline is paddled, the more nature will be disturbed. The quicker the electronic devices spread the word about a specific location where something unique can be seen along that nature trail or shoreline, the quicker and more intensely that part of the trail and/or shoreline will be used and therefore the quicker and more intensely it will disturb the very nature that everyone has come to observe. If I know that I can easily scare off wildlife when I am on a nature walk by myself, I surely don't need to know the ratio of a deer's psi to know that one person viewing nature at it's best is totally different than thousands of people all trying to do the same thing, at the same time, in the same space. In my opinion, the use of electronic devices just magnifies the potential for more people to share info that could potentially lead to more and more people distrurbing nature while we all seek our own memories of something rare.

To try to put my thoughts into birders perspective, lets say that an Ivory Billed Woodpecker was confirmed with a photo in some remote location in XXXX region at YYYY gps coordinates. How long would it be before you or I, or someone we knew, would be driving to said location to scout out the LAST Ivory Billed Woodpecker on earth just to say we saw it? Would one person be enough to scare it off or affect it's natural behaviour? Maybe not, but what if 10 people showed up all at once, what if a 100 people wanted to share in the sighting, what if 1000 people were there all of a sudden? What if 999 people was the maximum that bird could tolerate before it felt the need to flee the area for it's safety and you were the 1000th person with a 1000 more people waiting in line for a sighting? At what point do we decide that there is a negative impact on our collective actions? Would 1000 birders referencing ebird for a specific location of the elusive Ivory Billed Woodpecker threaten the bird, or would it take 10,000 birders or 100,000 birders invading it's space to become a threat to it's existence?

In closing a want to say that I did not intend to offend anyone for birding with a passion, we all have a love of nature and I meant no disrespect for those that use electonic devices to enhance that love of nature. I myself have used recordings in an attempt to lure birds out in the open and I have chased down a few birds because of electronically reported sightings. I merely wanted to share my thoughts on the negative impact my passion may have on the wildlife I desire to see. Personally, I can see how the compound effect of electronic devices can multiply this negative effect with more and more users seeking rarer and rarer sightings in more and more remote areas. Alternatively, I have to admit that I can also see the potential for positive effect from the info recorded by way of digital devices, so you could say I am torn as to whether the good will out weigh the bad in the digital device arena. I am not torn about one thing though, I firmly believe that the less we interfere with nature, the better off nature is. That's just the way I see it.

[cabirds]

Posting via phone so forgive my initial brevity. In no way do you owe me or anyone else an apology for holding an opinion, or for expressing it on a FORUM.

There has been no ad hominem here. You're not calling me names, nor i you. We're (strongly) disagreeing on a positionlike adults. It's an important topic of discussion.i think we'll ultimately not be able to find agreement even on the definition of"natural", but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. So I'll respond to your points after my nap.

[zoutedrop]

lonestranger, I agree with everything that you said. I was in some far off remote location a few weeks ago, there had been a sighting of a rare bird and you would have thought you were in a city park for the number of people that were there.

Two observations, the first is the anthropomorphic aspect of our interaction with wildlife. If I were a bird, I wouldn't nest where there were people, yet you can find 60 species in Central Park. Some local spots, Gilbert Water Ranch total count is over 300 (literally hundreds of people per day), and the Boyce Thompson Arboretum has hundreds of visitors per weekend with Cooper's Hawks nesting in the middle of the action. Some of our canyons in southern Arizona are world famous for birding with a constant stream of visitors.

The second is the number of people fishing coastal waters far outnumbers birders and always will. The number of beachcombers far outnumber birders and always will. The petrochemical impact on the Gulf of Mexico is unstoppable (another 10 mile slick this week).

Can you imagine the disruption caused by the annual Christmas bird count? I was part of a group that went to places where there may not have been anyone since the prior year count.

The very act of birding is an intrusive act. I say we do more good than harm by supporting the diversity of nature and getting others to appreciate it too. But being the pessimist, the Sierra Club, Green Peace, et al, are fighting a lost battle.

How about a birders' creed that is a bit more proactive, instead of a list of don'ts, how about a list of what to do?

brush piles on your property
don't trim bushes and trees off the ground
don't cut off dead branches
plant trees and bushes that produce bird only fruit
put out a variety of food on a daily basis
provide water
plant seed producing flowers

Look at posting #21 in the following thread... my neighbors all know that I am a nature lover and seem to appreciate it.

http://www.whatbird....natural-feeder/

[lonestranger]

I like your list of proactive of things to do, zoutedrop, I do all of that myself. Our very large yard is left kind of wild, grass untrimmed except for a small portion closest to the house, dead trees left standing instead of being cut down for firewood, fallen branches left where they fall except for the ones that are in the way of the lawnmower, and the brush piles from years gone by are left undisturbed. My hope is that the more natural my yard is, the more nature I'll be able to enjoy right from my patio. With the addition of putting out feed, my yard is frequented with deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, possum, coyote, and probably a hundred or more species of birds. As you stated, habitat loss is a major concern that can be offset a bit by creating small pieces of wild habitat in our own backyards. Unfortunately, your and my backyard habitat won't replace the habitat that is going to be lost to the housing and feeding of the next 2 billion people added to the world population.

[cabirds]

As promised (threatened? ):

That two hours further you have to drive, is that because of people out enjoying the open spaces, or is it because they dropped three strip malls, four office complexes, and eight more neighborhoods of crummy tract-homes?

If people appreciate their open spaces, they are more likely to defend them. If they're inaccessible, they're more likely to forget them. And forgetting them means their preservation is utterly and completely unimportant to politicians.

How do people come to appreciate them? By being out in them. By taking an interest in them. By enjoying them. By looking forward to spending time in them. Audubon begging for money doesn't make anyone appreciate their open spaces more, I promise. If they become overcrowded, then there will be a hue-and-cry for more of them. For reclaiming them.

It may seem the oxymoron, but the more people take advantage of their natural resources, the more they protect them, the more they fear their loss.

[creeker]

As promised (threatened? ):

That two hours further you have to drive, is that because of people out enjoying the open spaces, or is it because they dropped three strip malls, four office complexes, and eight more neighborhoods of crummy tract-homes?

If people appreciate their open spaces, they are more likely to defend them. If they're inaccessible, they're more likely to forget them. And forgetting them means their preservation is utterly and completely unimportant to politicians.

How do people come to appreciate them? By being out in them. By taking an interest in them. By enjoying them. By looking forward to spending time in them. Audubon begging for money doesn't make anyone appreciate their open spaces more, I promise. If they become overcrowded, then there will be a hue-and-cry for more of them. For reclaiming them.

It may seem the oxymoron, but the more people take advantage of their natural resources, the more they protect them, the more they fear their loss.

I totally agree with this!

[cestma]

lonestranger, you speak for me. I am trying to appreciate the optimistic side as posted here by others, but my background and general nature, I guess, make me a glass-half-empty type.

There's pretty much a scientific consensus that we're in the middle of another great extinction event, this one anthropogenic. As to the species that do adapt to urbanization, they represent a smaller number of adaptable species. Overall human management has a history of disturbing rather than maintaining ecological balance.

[cany]

It's an interesting topic, no matter what one's position is.

I have lived in the same area for 37 years. The encroachment of people/urbanization on the wildlands and particularly wildlife is VERY noticeable.

Recently out where I live, a large tract of land was dedicated for wildlife mitigation per a very wealthy developer that will be otherwise destroying some stunningly beautiful (and important) lands. The lands were managed very well by a large environmental group. Now the lands are in the county's hands, with virtually NO full time control and without an EIR, yet, to determine ultimate uses, etc.

As a result, yesterday, for instance, I was quietly standing on the end of a roadway. Up drove three cars, radios blasting, and five people emerge with four large dogs and everything in sight left. After the dogs were left running for 15 minutes, I nicely asked them if they could put them on a leash and got a bag of you know what for it. All young guys, maybe early 20s, who haven't a CLUE WHY it's important they be respectful of not only me, but the wildlife and lands.

I was so upset I left. This is an area that I used to frequent and virtually no one knew it was there or cared. Now that the county has it, it's a disaster.

Even on the one-1.5 car wide roadway, people drive like maniacs and anything crossing it doesn't stand a chance.

A couple days earlier, motorcycles were racing up and down and later in the day, someone was driving fast then slamming on their brakes. I finally stopped them and asked them to please slow down. I got a bunch of snot as they said they were testing their brakes. Then a nice hand gesture.

Is this really how we view our wildlands? Something so worthless that we don't care to plan or manage it properly? Is education really that or is it really just an extremely hit and (mostly) miss in trying to get people to understand the point and purpose of wildlands?

It bothers me to the point I am seriously considering moving. This isn't the kind of wildlife ethic I have or appreciate.