On the subject of banding and satellite tracking

Banded Stilts have been shown to be speedy and accurate fliers between ephemeral water bodies See http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/10/15/4106711.htm Regards, Laurie. On 17 Oct 2014, at 5:08 pm, Damien Farine <swiss7@hotmail.com> wrote: > Ian, > As I mentioned in my previous post, these kinds of debates/questions are important to raise now and again to encourage banders to reflect on what goals their effects are achieving. > However, these sorts of emails are not particularly useful as they provide only opinions and emotions, rather than making a contribution based on evidence. Take your comparison of the effects of photography to bird banding. Whilst the effect of a photographer flushing a bird may appear to be minor to the perpetrator, the repeated effects of these sort of disturbances week after week by hundreds or thousands of photographers may have profound impacts individual bird’s perception of risk, resulting in changes in its behaviour that can affect how much it forages and subsequently its reproductive success. So far I have been ‘hand-waving’, but there are published studies, for example on European oystercatchers, that show direct evidence for this. Further, many studies have demonstrated very clearly that birds with greater perceived risk suffer negative physiological effects that can reduce survival via a range of mechanisms. No one is claiming that banding doesn’t have some impact on the particular individuals that are captured and banded, but frequent disturbances (including walking dogs, etc.) can have impact on tens or hundreds of individual birds each time a disturbance occurs, and, as a result, change behavioural patterns at a much larger scale. This effect should not be under-estimated, or brushed away with a feather duster. > The arguments you put forward are also entirely restricted to waders, whereas the original posting was about a trip to mallee habitat. There are many good studies that can demonstrate there is very little long-term impact of banding on individual birds. In one of my research sites, we have tracked the same birds year-in year-out building nests, feeding young, and so on with no adverse effects. For example, of the 63 birds we colour-banded in the initial cohort in 2010, we resighted every single bird multiple times in subsequent years (they sometimes disappear for months or years, only to mysteriously return – with all appendages intact). Sure the capturing and banding events were stressful, but our priority is to minimise the impact of this, and I think our data suggests we do a very good job of it. > I would be very surprised if banding shorebirds would make any contributions to the decline of waders. If you are concerned you could request the data from those involved in the studies and do an analysis on it to provide evidence either for or against this. Even better, why not fund (or raise money for) a scholarship for a graduate student to investigate this question in detail by performing experiments to get at the causal factors? > I was asked by Steve Read for more information by listing published studies. For the purpose of promoting a constructive debate, I have pasted my reply below. > One final point is that arguments based around the need for science to have immediate deliverable impacts (i.e. banding should help save birds) are extremely detrimental to the future of science (sadly this is the view of our current government). Almost all the scientific knowledge we have is built up from discovery science. This is research done to address what can appear as narrow goals, but is usually framed in a broader set of hypotheses. Thus, what we should not be asking if ‘banding will help save birds’, but rather if ‘banding will continue to contribute to the knowledge we need to help in the conservation of birds’. I think the answer to the latter is a resounding YES. > I might close off by indulging in mentioning that while writing this reply, a Great horned owl has been calling outside my window. Last week it was a Western screech-owl calling from the same tree. >