[TN-Bird] Re: Loving some birds to death by banding

Re: banding mortality, while I don't have the exact numbers handy, I 
estimate that Portia Macmillan and I have banded between 1500 and 2000 
hummingbirds.  Out of that number, we have had only one fatality during 
the banding process.

I've also worked many hours at several mist net stations, and have 
spent many hours in the field with David Vogt banding raptors.  I can't 
quote you exact statistics, but I can darn sure tell you that the 
mortality rate wasn't anywhere near 10%.  My guess is it was closer 
to .1%.

I complete agree with Charlie that any bander with anywhere close to a 
10% mortality rate (and I seriously doubt that there are any) should be 
thoroughly investigated.

Banding is not a recreational activity, it is a research project.  I 
band winter hummingbirds out of a desire to learn more about their 
winter survivorship, their winter movement patterns, and their origins, 
especially in light of the mindboggling increase in documented 
sightings within the past ten years (see the most recent issue of The 
Migrant for a paper I wrote on this topic).  Relative to most other 
banding efforts, I believe the recovery rate on winter hummers is much 
higher, and thus, the more birds we band, the more data we accumulate.  

Is it completely risk-free for the birds?  Of course not, but there is 
no interaction between man and nature that is completely risk free, and 
that includes birding and bird feeding.  However, with banding, given 
the (in my experience) extremely small level of risk compared with the 
value of the data we are collecting, I believe this small risk to be an 
acceptable one, and, more importantly, one that will do much much more 
good than harm over the long haul.

There are still many questions to be answered about birds, but you 
cannot answer questions if you do not ask them, and that is what we as 
banders strive to do.

That's my $0.02 worth on the matter.

Chris Sloan
chris.sloan@xxxxxxxxxxx
Nashville, TN

----- Original Message -----
From: Charlie <cmmbirds@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, December 23, 2002 8:45 am
Subject: [TN-Bird] Re: Loving some birds to death by banding

> ANYTHING about winter hummers in the US.  Read up on Nancy Newfield's
> work.  Ask Bob Sargent or Chris Sloan what their mortality rate is.

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