[obol] on waging war.

[DAVID IRONS]

Greetings All,

I have to agree with Dave Lauten's assessment of this situation.  I think the bottom line is that, like David Fix, few of us want to hear about someone killing birds, regardless of their provenance.

I would add one caveat,  Sheila Chambers has been reporting the slaughter of Starlings and House Sparrows on her property for as long as I've been a subscriber to this list (since 1998).  This begs the question, why are there still Starlings and House Sparrows around her place?   She obviously is not acquainted with the first rule of population dynamics, "if you kill them, more will come."  Starlings and House Sparrows are both known for producing multiple broods in a breeding season.  I have personally witnessed both species produce three broods in a single nesting season.  Simply put, they breed like mice.  Sheila can trap and kill these two species until the end of time and will not put an appreciable dent in their local populations. 

It may make her feel like she is doing something proactive with this practice, personally I'd rather push rocks uphill.

Dave Irons
 
----------------------------------------
> Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 19:51:51 -0800
> From: deweysage at verizon.net
> To: obol at lists.orst.edu
> Subject: Re: [obol] on waging war.
> 
> Folks,
> 
> I don't want to enter the argument about whether this species deserves 
> to live and that one doesn't.  But, I do want to point out that OBOL was 
> and is designed to spread word about bird SIGHTINGS. 
> 
> I think everyone here would agree that if I went hunting for ducks 
> today, and I saw 13 Trumpeter Swans, 501 Mallards, 3 Redheads, and I 
> KILLED 4 Pintails, most of you, if not all of you, would probably rather 
> not hear about the dead Pintails.  You'd likely be very interested in 
> the Garganey I saw though. 
> 
> Or, if I kept a running tally for all OBOLers of the number of crows and 
> ravens removed, er, killed, to protect our precious coastal breeding 
> Snowy Plovers, there would probably be a few people who would rather not 
> know the current tally.....or rather not know at all. 
> 
> I think Mr. Fix's point is not totally whether we need to kill this 
> species or not.  It is that OBOL is for sightings, not killings.  If you 
> desire to kill, whether that be for conservation reasons or personnal 
> reasons, that is up to you, but the rest of OBOL doesn't necessarily 
> need to hear the gory details nor the tally.
> 
> I bet there are several hunters on OBOL who report their sightings all 
> the time, but not their killings.  Probably best to keep it that way.
> 
> Cheers
> Dave Lauten
> Bandon OR
> deweysage at verizon.net
> 
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