[TN-Bird] Loving some birds to death by banding
- From: "William T. Thornton" <wtthornton@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 07:54:09 -0600
Currently more than 6,000 folks have permits to band North American birds. Do
we really need that many?
Currently, of the birds banded each year, there is only about a 7 per cent
recovery rate. What happens to the other 93 per cent? What percentage of
birds trapped and banded end up dead as a result of the banding/trapping
experience? How many birds are killed in the trapping process before they can
be banded?
Historically, of the millions and millions of bird trapped and banded, there
has been only about a 6 per cent recovery rate. While it can be assumed that
we did learn a tremendous amount from this 6 per cent return rate especially in
the early years of banding, the absent 94 per cent may be telling us even more.
I do not have species specific data -- I am sure that for some species the
return rate on bands is more and on others less than this averaged data would
suggest. For instance, some time ago on TN-Birds it was posted that the return
on hummingbird bands was about 2 per cent -- if this is indeed valid data,
perhaps we should question the practice of banding every hummer we see in the
late fall/early winter. If some of the "rare" forms of western hummers are
trying to establish a foothold east of the Mississippi, they might have a
better chance without a leg band. Recently it was posted on BirdKY that a
Calliope Hummingbird in Ohio died in the banding process.
Nowadays, do we really need to continue to have more and more birds banded?
Are we running the risk of "loving some bird species to death?"
(The current and historical numbers above were calculated from data available
at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/100years.htm)
Terry Thornton
Rinnie, TN (North of Crossville on the Cumberland Plateau)
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