Hello Colorado Birders: Many of us support wildlife conservation in a variety of ways but as a whole (birding community), our birding activities are "free." Of course we spend thousands of dollars doing what we love but we don't have a direct fee/permit process to be doing what we love, therefore our numbers are poorly represented or misunderstood.
Many of the places we love to go birding were purchased/preserved by hunting and fishing organizations. Most state wildlife agencies are funded entirely or mostly from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and the national trend for these activities is on the decline, particularly hunting. It makes perfect sense to me that CPW is asking visitors to the properties they manage to help pay for the work they do. I am happy to buy a fishing license, though I have no intention of ever going fishing. Wouldn't it be great if we could "show" our numbers? Almost a decade ago now, the state of Maine started a program like this. It is called the Maine Birder Band. A nominal fee gets you a bird band and the money goes to support the non-game fund for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Learn more about the program here: https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/support-wildlife/birder-band.html Wouldn't it be great if Colorado had a program like this. Anybody have any contacts at CPW? Sincerely, Eric ..................... Eric Hynes Placerville, CO --------------------- Field Guides Birding Tours www.fieldguides.com http://fieldguides.com/guides/eric-hynes -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAPpN%2B3Go7TO6AyJ9U54Sn2tyCiW6uY2KNcqCoO3dq7V0hKeenA%40mail.gmail.com.
