[NatureNS] Re: Green birding

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Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:09:27 -0300
From: "James Churchill" <jameslchurchill@gmail.com>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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&gt;                 http://www.flickr.com/g
Hi folks,

I am completely for reducing emissions, and these messages are making
me realize how much more "green" i can be when birding. But what I
want the most is THRIVING BIRD POPULATIONS. I'm not yet convinced that
self-propelled birding is the best way to reduce our impact on birds,
and at the worst, could it increase our relative impact? For
recreational birding I am all for carpooling, biking and paddling! It
definitely reduces emissions and makes birding entirely more
enjoyable. But when birding for non-recreational surveys/studies, in
deciding how much self-propelled birding to do I would be concerned
with a few issues:

1. Because of increased time required to "self-propel" will it reduce
the frequency and extent of our coverage and further bias our surveys
to the human-tolerant species? With numerous declining bird
populations, I can't justify self-propelling if it reduces quality or
extent of data especially given that….

2. Not driving while birding will not make us carbon neutral birders.
My carbon emissions from other behaviours greatly outweighs direct
emissions during birding trips. I drive my car 700 km a week for work,
and I just got back from Thailand. As much as I love biking and would
love to conduct surveys by bike, my carbon footprint would be SO MUCH
less if I spent the extra time i had (from not-self propelling) by
taking KingsTransit to work or arranging to carpool and waiting for my
late carpool partner each day; or if I travelled closer to home.

If our goal through this is to reduce impact on birds, I think
initiatives such as bigby are a step in the right direction, but I
would like to see more encompassing "green-birding"
concepts/strategies, that prompt individuals/groups to invest in the
steps that MAXIMIZE the benefit to birds based on cost/benefit
comparisons among options. Given complicated new technologies etc. I
don't think our intuition is as reliable anymore when weighing
environmental options (e.g, check out the impact of reading paper
magazines vs. subscribing to and reading them online).

Thoughts?

James.

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