Hello all,
There are several of us in the local birding community who are working on
issues like this -- interactions between birders and hunters. Indeed, several
of us have been involved at various scales (local, state, national) for many
years. These are complicated issues, and good reasons (for birders, and for
waterfowl conservation) actually exist to maintain waterfowl hunting on Cayuga
Lake. I think it makes wonderful sense to have these conversations locally,
and the Cayuga Bird Club is a great platform. The discussions likely will
require quite a bit of discussion in small to medium-sized groups (rather than
on a listserve), although some kind of mechanism probably will need to be
identified to allow input from folks who are not Bird Club members or who do
not live close enough to meet regularly but want to participate in the
discussion. Like I said, something like this may seem like a worthy cause on
the surface, but greater benefit for people and bird conservation might come
out of some kind of effort at birders and hunters working together rather than
as antagonizers.
Thanks for listening.
Jody
Jody W. Enck, PhD
Human Dimensions of Natural Resources
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
From: Sandy Podulka
Sent: January 5, 2013 8:51 AM
To: CAYUGABIRDS-L
Subject: Re:[cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from
hunting diving ducks
This would be a great project for the CBC and John has made thoughtful,
thorough points. It will be a tough sell to DEC, though, as in my experience,
many people at DEC (but hopefully not all) view wildlife only as "stuff to
hunt."
--Sandy Podulka
At 09:29 AM 1/5/2013, Linda Orkin wrote:
Hello All,
Yes, I think this could be a project of the bird club with this input and
support from people like John and Bill and their extensive knowledge and
experience with "authorities". Let us pursue this worthy goal. What would be
a good next step? Should those of us interested get together?
John's points are so well presented and thought out it seems to be the perfect
starting place.
Linda Orkin
On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:02 AM, Meena Haribal
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi all,
I think this would be great conservation project for CBC to take up, with
inputs from Bill and John and anyone else to be part of it.
Cheers
Meena
Meena Haribal
Ithaca NY 14850
http://haribal.org/
http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/
________________________________
From:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
[
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
on behalf of Bill Evans [
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2013 8:52 AM
To: John Confer; CAYUGABIRDS-L
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from
hunting diving ducks
This would be a nice accomplishment that is long overdue. I’ve thought that the
“few individuals...greatly reducing the pleasure of many” angle should be
enough to produce such an exemption, but your approach of population analysis
and presenting a scientific case for the exemption might help facilitate the
change for DEC. Certainly the issue of hunting in such close proximity to a
population center seems like it could be a driver – besides the safety issue,
the sound of gunshots can be quite unnerving for some in our society.
From the birding and environmental education perspective, it would be wonderful
to enjoy viewing large rafts of Aythya ducks and their cohorts on a more
consistent basis.
Nearly 20 years ago Common Council voted to ban hunting in Allan Treman Marine
Park – apparently the City of Ithaca had allowed hunting there after it was
purchased by the state in 1976. Hunting currently occurs in the water offshore,
and I’m not clear on jurisdiction involved.
Bill E
From: John Confer<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:55 PM
To: Cayuga Bird List<mailto:[email protected]> ; Confer,
Karen<mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from hunting
diving ducks
Hi Folks,
CBC are always fun for many reasons. It tickles the grey cells to think
about population trends and regulatory factors. I shared a fun discussion about
the impact of hunting on waterfowl on the south end and the rest of Cayuga Lake
and we discussed if there were objective data on population abundance to
justify preventing such hunting. This got me thinking.
The Fish and Wildlife spends an immense amount of effort to census waterfowl
every year: extensive aerial surveys that criss-cross the prairie potholes and
elsewhere and Hudson Bay coast, really extensive banding efforts, and hundreds
of hours of ground surveys, etc. All of this provides an estimate of pop
abundance for each species. This is used to set bag limits. This immense effort
is predicated on the belief that hunters are one of the significant factors
that regulate waterfowl abundance, and that to sustain the population at nearly
level numbers over the long term, one must adjust the bag limit in some
proportion to the abundance at the start of fall migration. In the same line of
reasoning, the spring snow goose hunting season and the split canada goose
hunting season are all based on the belief that hunting in general regulates
waterfowl abundance. The newly proposed expansion of waterfowl hunting on snow
geese for Montezuma is also based on hunting will continue to regulate
abundance. Either, hunting does regulate waterfowl abundance, or the F&WS is
fooling us and themselves.
It is impossible to acquire the specific, statistically-based evidence
that hunting regulates the specific population of waterfowl using Cayuga Lake
for several reasons. There is no reason to believe that the impact of hunting
of waterfowl on Cayuga Lake is exempt from this generality. In fact, it would
be incumbent for the merit of such an argument to provide evidence why Cayuga
Lake is an exception to the general concept of waterfowl management.
Difficulties in making data-based arguments about waterfowl on Cayuga Lake
include many factors.
1) There is no estimate of the take, which obviously means you can't quantify
the impact. The absence of the fundamental data limits the ability to say if
there is or isn't an effect.
2)There is no way to estimate the impact of driving the waterfowl out of their
favored foraging site. A reasonable hypothesis is that winter food supply is
important. Waterfowl speak with their wings. This provides strong support for
the hypothesis that the shallows of Cayuga Lake provide a favorable foraging
site. There are no other areas in the inland northeast that have as many diving
ducks in mid-winter as Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. The abundance of diving
waterfowl on these lakes during times outside of the hunting season suggest
that this food source may be one of the best in the entire winter range. In
which case, limiting access to a food source for part of the winter may be very
deleterious, and could have negative effects on far more than the number killed
by shot.
3) When I first came here, there was a waterfowl bander on Seneca Lake. I never
met him and don't recall his name. I was told, with what seemed like high
credibility, that banding indicated that waterfowl moved back and forth between
Seneca Lake, and by inference Cayuga Lake as well, and the coast repeatedly
during the winter. Thus, populations on Seneca Lake, and by inference Cayuga
Lake, are a sub-sample of the eastern population. The suggestion that an
increase in waterfowl on Cayuga Lake during the winter shows that hunting on
Cayuga Lake has no impact on the Cayuga Lake population fails to consider that
the Cayuga Lake population is a portion of and exchanges with the east coast
wintering population. In order to detect an effect of Cayuga Lake take, it
would have to be large enough to impact a perceptible portion of the entire
eastern wintering population.
4) Reliable data on the impact of hunting on diving ducks on part of Cayuga
Lake can not be based on data documenting an effect of hunting, because there
is no such data. Further, it would be nigh impossible to obtain. Such data
would require a series of years with and without hunting seasons, including
years when the continental populations are high and are low. It would require a
level of precision on the take of the population and quantitative information
on the exchange with the larger coastal population. It does not seem feasible
to me to obtain such a data-based decision on the impact that hunting on Cayuga
Lake has on the east coast population of diving ducks.
I believe such a ban can be defended on general arguments. The decision to
create federal wildlife refuges is based on the argument that waterfowl need
some place to forage and loaf where they are free of hunting pressure. J.
"Ding" Darling, with Ithaca relations, helped popularize this perception. The
refuge system was proposed as a means to sustain a high population for hunters
for the long run. For diving ducks, Cayuga Lake has no refuge because during
the hunting season ponds are frozen and the ducks are chased up and down the
entire shore, the only available habitat. While some shorelines do not allow
hunting access, hunting and fishing from boats eliminates these sites as
loafing areas. The great majority of the diving ducks who would use this lake
if they were not hunted, are either killed or driven out during the hunting
season. (Dabblers, who in the largest part migrate south of here when the
shallow waters freeze, are affected by a different mixture of factors.) It is
compatible with the basic reason for the refuge system to presume, until shown
otherwise, that the loss of a highly favorable foraging and loafing site is
highly likely to have a negative impact on the population. In the long run,
this is deleterious to hunters.
An entirely different argument is based on the relative involvement for
non-consumptive watching and hunting. Hunting diving ducks on Cayuga Lake is
obviously deleterious to birders and there are far more birders than hunters.
In New York, 3,800,000 people participated in wildlife watching in 2006 and
spent $1.5 billion, while 568,000 people participated in hunting for waterfowl
and upland game in NY spending $715 million. More locally, at MNWR the current
annual use is approximately 124,924 visitor-days by those who participated in
wildlife watching, photography and environmental education and 2252
visitor-days for individuals who hunt for upland game and waterfowl. I support
hunting: the deer population should be greatly reduced and hunting seems to be
the optimum method, and, e.g., canada geese and snow geese should be greatly
reduced. Shooting diving ducks on all parts of Cayuga Lake is not in the same
category to me. First, I don't think that a few individuals should greatly
reduce the pleasure of many. Second, the initial popular movement and reasoning
for the creation of the refuge system were predicated on the hypothesis that
preserving favorable sites for foraging and for loafing are essential to
maintaining future populations that are abundant enough to allow hunting
success. I believe that argument is valid and support its philosophy. Some
portions of the Cayuga Lake shoreline, which are attractive to diving ducks,
should be exempt from hunting.
Cheers,
John Confer
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