Hello everyone -
Please note that although I am posting the letter below using my account,
it has three signatories and expresses the views of all three of us.
Thanks -
Mike
Probably most of us have been given a gift we didn’t particularly like, and
as children we learned that “it’s the thought that counts” and we should
say thank you anyway. In other words, we’ve been taught that gratitude is a
proper response to any gift – even the ones we don’t really like or want.
When someone finds a rare bird and posts the information on where to see
it, you’re being given a gift – at least two of them, in fact. The gift of
information regarding where the bird is, and the gift of access, so that
you can visit the property where the bird is. We might even step back a bit
and think of all birds themselves, as well as the time we have to devote to
them, as gifts, even aside from their rarity.
Unfortunately, it seems that some birders are not saying “thank you.” In
fact, many birders act as though they aren’t aware that what they’ve been
given is a gift at all. Instead, we’re concerned that the behavior of some
birders, especially when rare birds appear, implies that they are not
concerned about what impact what they’re doing will have on anyone besides
themselves. Repeated actions by some birders in recent years, especially
when rarities appear, indicate to us that too many birders are willing to
put their own desires to see and photograph birds ahead of the welfare of
birds, the stated desires of property owners (and in some cases, the law),
and the interests of other birders in seeing the same birds.
The birds that we are often most anxious to see (rarities) are also often
ones that are especially stressed. They are typically in a strange
environment and so are coping with pressures to survive that are at least
partly foreign to them. Food, predators, and other components of the
habitat in which they’ve found themselves are not what they’re used to,
which makes them more vulnerable. Birders who pursue such birds too closely
are adding to their stress and are making them less likely to survive. This
is obviously not in the best interest of the birds, and it makes it less
likely that such birds will survive until other birders can see them. The
excuse that such birds “are going to die anyway” might often be true, but
it’s not a certainty, nor is it an excuse for irritating other birders or
property owners.
Property owners, whether individual or corporate, private or governmental,
have the right in this country to tell birders when and how they may access
their property. While it’s true that some restrictions might seem
unreasonable from a birder’s perspective, when they are clearly stated, we
risk their anger (if not legal retribution) when disregarding them. An
all-too-common response by landowners angered at birders is simply to
restrict or end access to their property. This is understandable, since it
is an efficient solution, much more efficient than trying to compile a list
of “good” vs. “bad” birders, i.e. those who follow the stated guidelines
and those who don’t. Restricting access to a site harms all birders, and
eliminates whatever value the scientific data contributed by birders might
have had.
Birders are people, and all people are not the same. To be frank, some care
more about other people, and some care less. Birder misbehavior that
threatens birds and angers property owners is also frustrating to other
birders, and it appears that some birders need to be reminded of this. Some
reasons have already been mentioned above: that birds might leave an area
or die prematurely due to stress, meaning that fewer birders see them, and
that access to good birding areas can be curtailed. And there are other
reasons.
One reason that has been mentioned before is that birding is common enough
that there can be such a thing as a “public perception of a birder.” To
give a similar example, consider any other label that we put on other
people: hunter, vegetarian, liberal, conservative, atheist, theist…. Each
of these carries certain biases and images, for better or worse, accurate
or inaccurate. What we do as birders contributes to the public image of a
birder. Rightly or wrongly, people often apply characteristics of the
extremists within a group to all the members of the group. If birders
tolerate a few trespassers who will do anything to get a better look at a
bird or a better photograph of a bird, we risk being categorized with them.
Your behavior as a birder reflects on other birders. Even if that is not
reasonable, it is the way people think.
It has been less than 100 years since ornithology that used a shotgun as a
primary tool evolved into birding that uses binoculars as a primary tool.
Now we’ve entered a time when our binoculars are routinely supplemented
with social media and digital photography. As with any new technology, this
combination has the potential for abuse, and we are particularly concerned
about the repeated abuse of information gained through social media by
birders generally, and by bird photographers in particular.
While we could tell numerous stories of particular offenses and offenders
from recent years, we do not want to engage in finger-pointing at
individuals. But the possession of expensive equipment does not exempt
anyone from the guidelines we’ve discussed above. Arguably, it gives one
even more responsibility, since it can give non-birders a stronger
impression of someone who has time and money to spend chasing birds than do
our binoculars. (The average member of the public probably can’t tell at a
glance the difference between a $200 pair of binoculars and a $2200 pair,
but they can tell the difference between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR with
a Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens.) Similarly, the misuse of sound recording and
broadcasting equipment remains a concern, especially since the field use of
phones with superb sound reproduction capabilities is now routine.
We want to remind all birders that behaviors that stress the birds we
purse, or stress the landowners on whose land the birds occur, or stress
other birders, should be avoided. Such incidents have the potential to
become even more common as birder numbers increase and we continue to use
social media. We also want to point out that in recent years, we have seen
incidents ourselves, and heard numerous other reports, indicating that bird
photographers are responsible for a large number of such incidents. And, we
want to encourage birders who do not engage in or condone such behaviors to
speak to, and speak out against, those who do.
Not all bird species are the same and not all respond to birder pressure
the same. Every situation is a little different. Seeing a rare storm-petrel
from a boat on a pelagic trip, seeing a rare hummingbird at a feeder on
someone’s porch, and seeing a rare wader on a private pond by a public road
are three distinctly different birding scenarios. And although we can agree
on general guidelines, they still have to be applied in particular birding
situations. What was not too close to a bird in one situation might be too
close in another, even when observing the same species of bird. We need to
help each other realize the subtleties of such situations. In many cases
birds are little bothered by our presence. But when large numbers of
birders crowd into a single spot, both birds and landowners are more likely
to be disturbed.
You might say that we are motivated by selfish concerns ourselves. We still
want to see rare birds, and we live with regret that formerly productive
birding sites such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel have had their
access severely curtailed or eliminated. While some blame for such
restrictions can be laid on post-911 caution / paranoia, that cannot
explain every limit we’ve been forced to live with. We are also active
birders who do not wish to be forced to take the position of never posting
the locations of rarities we find because we’re worried about the
likelihood of misbehavior by other birders. It’s reasonable to us that such
an attitude could become increasingly common if birders continue to
disregard the welfare of birds, the rights of property owners, and the
hopes of other birders.
Those who gain a reputation as offenders by repeatedly harassing birds and
disregarding the interests of landowners and other birders cannot be
surprised if they find themselves excluded from the news about rare birds
in the future; what they may gain instead is the ire of other birders who
are also not made aware of rarities when information about such birds is
kept away from social media. This is not an idle conceit; it has occurred
in some situations already. We are aware of birds now present in Virginia,
and others recently occurring here, whose presence was not made public due
to exactly the sort of concerns we are describing. We wish that this did
not have to be the case, and we are writing this letter in hopes that such
situations can be minimized in the future.
We live in the first era in the history of humanity in which information
about the presence of birds (and other wildlife) can be disseminated
instantaneously. It would be bitterly ironic if the technological
revolution that makes possible this interconnection between people
interested in birds were to result in a backlash in which such information
is routinely suppressed, all because of a few bad actors. For decades, the
American Birding Association has published a Code of Birding Ethics (
http://listing.aba.org/ethics/). The ABA regularly revises and discusses
this document. Whether one is a lister, a photographer, or a general
birding enthusiast, we the undersigned feel that it is the obligation of
birders to abide by the letter and the spirit of this document. If our
birding culture cannot be governed by what is, in the end, basic courtesy,
consideration, and common sense, then we risk losing the culture itself. At
the very least, communication about special places and special birds would
become much more limited and private than it is at this moment. We urge
everyone to read the ABA’s Code of Birding Ethics and take the Code to
heart.
Mike Stinson
Ned Brinkley
Todd Day
eBird reviewers
--
C. Michael Stinson
Dillwyn, VA
