FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Re: More birding terrorists

[Phoebetria@xxxxxxx]

I conduct a birding tour of eastern North Carolina every May (for a week) for 
a large tour company.  In 2004, for the first time, we were detained by not 
one, not two, but THREE sets of law enforcement officials (a deputy and a 
sheriff from Beaufort County; and a state man) ON A SINGLE MORNING while they 
checked our licenses and our "story" that we were birding.  People had paid 
quite a 
fee to come visit the state and were handled without much consideration in 
two of the three cases.  I don't want to harp on this topic (risking running 
off 
topic for this listserve), but why on earth would police target small groups 
of retirees in this fashion?  It's not only counterproductive and a waste of 
taxpayer money: it is downright goon-like and not what I've come to expect as a 
citizen of this country in my ~40 years here.  We should identify instances 
of birder harassment to our Congressmen and other elected officials every time 
they occur.

Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA


In a message dated 3/3/05 2:43:32 PM, bj.chambers@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

<< on 3/3/05 2:06 PM, Eugene Burreson at gene@xxxxxxxx wrote:

This is all so very, very sad and just what the terrorists had in mind!

Barbara Chambers
Fairfax

> Recently, as part of the Backyard Bird Count, Dave Gillett, Heidi
> Geist and I birded the campus of the Virginia Institute of Marine
> Science, where we work or are students.  The folks at the Coleman
> Bridge toll booth called the county sheriff on us because we were
> "acting suspicious and had binoculars."  After we convinced the
> sheriff we were harmless, we walked down under the Coleman Bridge to
> look for water birds.  On the way back up the hill to VIMS, a state
> policeman pulled up and asked us if we had been under the bridge with
> binoculars and cameras.  Someone had called the state police and also
> reported us as suspicious.  We had just convinced him that we were
> harmless birders when a second state trooper pulled up.  We've become
> a paranoid society!

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Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:40:19 -0500
From: barbara chambers <bj.chambers@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [va-bird] Re: More birding terrorists
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