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. =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================