We know that birding competitions like the World Series of Birding and the Great Texas Birding Classic (or whatever they call it) need to have some rules to ensure a level playing field, but this is just ridiculous:
http://www.nycaudubon.org/Birdathon/PDF/ChallengeRules2007.pdf
Not only do they needlessly prohibit teams from calling bird in using tapes, take a look at Part 7. When you're in the field, you're supposed to invoke a waiver of Rule 7.a for "outlaw birds." Hey, that's lawyer-birding!
And look at Parts 12 and 13. A call of fowl? Written protests? Banning violators for one year? Oh man, it says "thank you" to NJ Audubon, so these must be the rules they use for the World Series of Birding or something.
Look, we're all for honesty and fair play, but this is birding, not the federal court system. If you see someone cheating, you're supposed to talk about them behind their backs, mock all of their undocumented sightings, and say "I bet *that* won't be refound" every time they report a rarity, not narc them out by filing a written protest.
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4 comments:
I think the idea behind banning the use of recordings to draw in birds is that if you have a lot of teams out playing tapes, you could end up causing stress for some of the birds. That is especially true in a place like New York where there is little habitat for certain species, so every team would be playing its recordings in the same location.
Hey, what happened to the Italian?? I'm going to call foul and file a written protest. Non mi piace.
See Section 7.1a.
Actually, when we get the chance, we'll post some interesting photos from the old neighborhood we took during the feast last summer.
Could some one on this blog submit some research papers or some facts to prove that the use of bird recordings causes stress on birds.
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