RE: [cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from hunting diving ducks
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 m...@cornell.edumailto:m...@cornell.edu 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: bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edumailto:bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu [ bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edumailto:bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Bill Evans [ wrev...@clarityconnect.commailto:wrev...@clarityconnect.com] 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 Confermailto:con...@ithaca.edu Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:55 PM To: Cayuga Bird Listmailto:Cayugabirds-L@cornell.edu ; Confer, Karenmailto:confergoldw...@aol.com ; j...@cornell.edumailto:j...@cornell.edu 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
Re: Re:[cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from hunting diving ducks
I agree with John Confer and others. I think his arguments should be more clearly and succinctly stated in order to be clear to others and effective to those who make decisions. I'm not volunteering or attempting to do so here, just adding some observations.The number and variety of waterfowl throughout Cayuga Lake in the winter are directly and obviously related to when the ponds at the adjacent Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge are frozen. Large numbers of birds rely on the lake as they do on the refuge.Duck shooting still occurs along the shore of Treman Marine Park despite bans by the City and/or the park. The loophole is that firing initially happens from a shallow-draft boat, while chairs,supplies,and carcasses are piled a few feet away on the shore. Gunners step into the ankle-deep water or wade up to their knees to shoot repeatedly at wounded birds. It's surprising how many shots it takes to kill a sitting duck.Yesterday morning a large raft of Redheads was in the southeast corner of the lake. Two guys from near Treman in the southwest corner of the lake, where we had heard gunfire, drove over in their boat, flushed the raft, and returned to the southwest corner. It looked like a deliberate disturbance of the birds in hopes that they would settle near the ambush. Thousands of Redheads flew north instead, but maybe some did settle in the southwest and get shot. I have also seen this practice of flushing birds on the water within the southwest part of the lake when birds are settled outside the range of their guns.I would prefer not to hear gunshots, as I did throughout my New Year's Day walk all over the streets of West Hill in the City of Ithaca. Rather than see birds being harassed, maimed, and killed by guys with guns and big motor boats, I would prefer to watch the birds feeding, courting, preening, and resting. Truly the bird life on Cayuga Lake is a spectacle worth publicizing and promoting.--Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! --
Re: [cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from hunting diving ducks
Hi all, This discussion threatens to escalate quickly and I hesitate to weigh in but here are a few comments for everyone to consider: 1. One of John Confer's main points is that making the direct connection between hunting pressure on Cayuga Lake and overall waterfowl populations is extremely difficult or impossible. This is true, so we need to be very careful not to then turn around and claim that local hunting is detrimental to duck populations. The truth is that waterfowl populations are managed and monitored at continental scales and factors such as rainfall on the breeding grounds and invasions of zebra mussels have a far greater effect on overall numbers and distributions than local hunting pressure. Most duck species (including Redhead) have long-term stable or increasing populations, primarily due to successful hunting-based waterfowl and wetland management in North America over the past 30 years. I have not looked at our local (or statewide) waterfowl survey data (coming from the counts we do in late January after hunting has stopped), but I believe that many duck species, and especially Redhead, have continued to increase as wintering birds on Cayuga Lake. The massive flocks of diving ducks have become and continue to be a spectacle to enjoy on many parts of the lake in mid- and late winter – i.e. the birds are not driven from vital feeding and resting areas long-term by hunting. In short, I would be very surprised if a biological argument could be made against legal and regulated hunting on any part of Cayuga Lake. 2. So that leaves the societal issues, which John and Dave and others have alluded to at the end of their posts: I would prefer not to hear gunshots I would prefer to watch the birds feeding, courting, preening, and resting. These of course are valid concerns, but I think we need to very careful to separate these personal-choice and societal issues from the biological. It may indeed be time to have a conversation about the justification for allowing hunting along the populated and popular shoreline within the Town of Ithaca -- but this is primarily a conversation about human conflict of interest and not biology. Like all human-conflict issues, it promises to be complex, contentious, and even potentially nasty. 3. I urge everyone to carefully consider Jody Enck's remarks, in light of our big-picture goals -- i.e. keeping bird and wildlife populations healthy and stemming the cancer of rampant development and habitat loss. if Birders and Hunters cannot reconcile our relatively minor differences to present a unified front against the much-larger forces threatening our shared resource, the future for birds and their habitats will be much dimmer. KEN Ken Rosenberg Conservation Science Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 607-254-2412 607-342-4594 (cell) k...@cornell.edumailto:k...@cornell.edu On Jan 6, 2013, at 11:24 AM, nutter.d...@me.commailto:nutter.d...@me.com nutter.d...@me.commailto:nutter.d...@me.com wrote: I agree with John Confer and others. I think his arguments should be more clearly and succinctly stated in order to be clear to others and effective to those who make decisions. I'm not volunteering or attempting to do so here, just adding some observations. The number and variety of waterfowl throughout Cayuga Lake in the winter are directly and obviously related to when the ponds at the adjacent Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge are frozen. Large numbers of birds rely on the lake as they do on the refuge. Duck shooting still occurs along the shore of Treman Marine Park despite bans by the City and/or the park. The loophole is that firing initially happens from a shallow-draft boat, while chairs, supplies, and carcasses are piled a few feet away on the shore. Gunners step into the ankle-deep water or wade up to their knees to shoot repeatedly at wounded birds. It's surprising how many shots it takes to kill a sitting duck. Yesterday morning a large raft of Redheads was in the southeast corner of the lake. Two guys from near Treman in the southwest corner of the lake, where we had heard gunfire, drove over in their boat, flushed the raft, and returned to the southwest corner. It looked like a deliberate disturbance of the birds in hopes that they would settle near the ambush. Thousands of Redheads flew north instead, but maybe some did settle in the southwest and get shot. I have also seen this practice of flushing birds on the water within the southwest part of the lake when birds are settled outside the range of their guns. I would prefer not to hear gunshots, as I did throughout my New Year's Day walk all over the streets of West Hill in the City of Ithaca. Rather than see birds being harassed, maimed, and killed by guys with guns and big motor boats, I would prefer to watch the birds feeding, courting, preening, and resting. Truly the bird life on Cayuga Lake is a spectacle worth publicizing and
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 Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:55 PM To: Cayuga Bird List ; Confer, Karen ; j...@cornell.edu 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 FWS 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
Re: [cayugabirds-l] (Long comment) Exempt part of Cayuga Lake from hunting diving ducks
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 m...@cornell.edu 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:* bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu [ bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Bill Evans [ wrev...@clarityconnect.com] *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 con...@ithaca.edu *Sent:* Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:55 PM *To:* Cayuga Bird List Cayugabirds-L@cornell.edu ; Confer, Karenconfergoldw...@aol.com; j...@cornell.edu *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 FWS 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
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 mailto:m...@cornell.edum...@cornell.edu 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://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- From: mailto:bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edubounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edubounce-72558715-3493...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Bill Evans [mailto:wrev...@clarityconnect.comwrev...@clarityconnect.com] 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. Ive 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 Im not clear on jurisdiction involved. Bill E From: mailto:con...@ithaca.eduJohn Confer Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:55 PM To: mailto:Cayugabirds-L@cornell.eduCayuga Bird List ; mailto:confergoldw...@aol.comConfer, Karen ; mailto:j...@cornell.eduj...@cornell.edu 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 FWS 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
