FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Re: banding and bird deaths

["C. C. Murray" <ccmurray@xxxxxxxx>]

> I understand the concern of those who feel that any
> bird death is too much to risk in order to gain
> knowledge about a species by banding many members
> of its population.

I would have liked to hear what information gained from banding stray
hummers is really necessary. It isn't going to cause a surge of efforts
to provide habitat for hummingbirds. People are already putting up
feeders.

> If we think of bird mortality as if it mirrored
> human mortality rates, which are comparatively
> much lower than those of most birds, we will be
> comparing apples and oranges.

We don't do that so we're not comparing anything.

> small.  Better to worry about the millions of
> birds killed each year by free-roaming cats
> in North America alone,

We do, but it's off topic for a bird list.

> figure seems way low to me, but it is the one
> that I hear most often) killed each year by
> collisions with towers, or the untold numbers
> that die by collisions with windows in private
> homes, businesses, etc.  Those who direct their
> ire against banders have much larger targets
> of opportunity to direct that ire against if
> they truly want to make a difference in the
> mortality suffered by birds at the hands of
> humans.

We worry and voice our concerns about all those things, but they are not
the topic here. Bringing them up only serves to cloud the issue. I would
prefer to hear good arguments in favor of banding hummers, if they
exist.

Bud Murray
Crawfordsville IN

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