Hi,

I always get a chuckle out of the USFWS numbers for "birders" and the
"conservative definition" used to derive that 47 million figure. *traveling
a mile or more from home specifically to look at birds or trying to
identify a bird they see in the wild)  The reality simply does not support
the claim.  Look no further than this list serve, or various Facebook
groups, or ABA or NAS membership numbers for confirmation.

The reality is active birders, those who have purchased a binocular, and
who have done something more than visit the local duck pond or tired to
identify a bird in their yard numbers far fewer.

A simple reality check can be done to confirm this using our state of Ohio
which is about as close to the mean  in many ways as you can get in our
country.

Ohio has a population of about 11.5 million and ranks 7th.

If we are generous and assume there is little crossover between FB and this
List Serve and count everyone who has been on a bird walk or purchased a
binocular the real number of active birders in the state is between 5,000
and at most 20,000.  (The Birding Ohio FB page has just over 3,000 members)

If we use the very generous number of 20,000 for the state, this is a puny
0.17% of the state population. Yes less than 1%. Not 20% as claimed in the
USFWS report

Our own experience bears this out, as we all know many of the people we see
out in the field and new people are immediately obvious.  Even at a place
like Magee Marsh in Mid May when a peak 3000 or so people visit in a single
day, many of those faces are familiar.

I know what the Xi study said about economic impact too, but that study did
not use a proper random sample of visitors, and applied them to this, dare
I say, outlandish USFWS 20% of the population number.

If you can get an honest answer from an optics company you will get further
confirmation. They sell more to the hook and bullet community than to
birders. Birders are an important market for them, but look not further
than the number of retail outlets that cater to hook and bullet versus
birders for confirmation of this. The complete flop of the big budget
birding movie, The Big Year is further confirmation

So let's be as credible and honest about these numbers as we are about what
we report seeing in the field.  Using inflated numbers can result in people
getting burned financially as happened to Hollywood, and this ultimately
has a negative impact on the sport, and on conservation issues in general.

In the end the real April fools joke is on those who believe and use the
highly inflated numbers.

Haans


On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Tom Bain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Ohio birding community,
>
> I enjoy the well-considered sort of April Fool's prank described by Haans,
> below. I recall a few gems! I don't need to look very far to find more of
> them. Not long ago, Ohio Birds Listserv pranksters could rest assured that
> listserv contributors were mostly part of the in-crowd; older, savvy,
> technically equipped, mostly male, long invested and significantly
> committed
> to birding and so-on. Importantly, these guys were mostly acquainted at
> some
> level, at least through long involvement in Ohio birding. This sort of
> audience invites pranks because they are inoculated (through previous
> controlled exposure) against costly consequences. The community has
> changed.
>
> March 31, Kenn Kaufman, undoubtedly the most personally generous birder I
> know, posted a cautionary note in order to inoculate our changing community
> against costly consequences of April Fool's Day pranks. Thank you, Kenn.
> Kenn has achieved a global vantage point few others enjoy. I haven't talked
> with him in a while, but I know that Kenn sees the "writing on the wall"
> that many others overlook. Birders are baby-boomers. Baby-boomers will soon
> decline rapidly. We must do everything we can to engage younger birders and
> more diverse participation in birding. Birders are important contributors
> and voters due to their impact on habitat protections.
>
> Kenn makes his living writing and selling excellent natural history guides
> (and giving away Spanish language versions, and more!) and through natural
> history guiding through top global services. Recent snide remarks about
> profiting from birding suggest systemic failure to embrace the importance
> of
> economic churn to birding and conservation, not to mention the obvious
> value
> of rare talent and skill. Economics, like it or not, will determine the
> future of birding and conservation. More than anything else, birding needs
> measured and reported economic impacts. Go start a birding business!
>
> Ohio's birding community has long manifest abundant generosity through
> no-cost services we provide and take for granted. The real value of the
> self-governed integrated bird reporting and filtering systems in Ohio is
> immeasurable. Ohio is blessed to host a legion of generous birders always
> at
> the ready to help others at their own expense. We need that generosity
> along
> with economic churn to impact the future. Thank you all for your
> contributions.
>
> The birding community is changing and that's a good thing. Out listserv
> must
> serve and appeal to a broad audience. I infrequently, grudgingly
> participate
> in Facebook, guess I'm dating myself, that's the point. I need the
> listserv,
> others need Facebook and its ilk. New forums are a boon for birding and
> conservation, that's a good thing. These forums must be inviting and
> considerate of diverse viewpoints and diverse experience levels.
>
> Find eye-opening stats about birding here:
> http://pcjv.org/docs/2011%20Birding%20Report--FINAL.pdf
>
> Tom Bain
> Ohio's Clayey Till Plain
> Delaware County
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Haans
> Petruschke
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 5:48 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] Fwd: April fools posting
>
> Thanks Joe, I agree
>
> A few of points beyond curmudgeonly behavior on the part of some.
>
> 1. A good April 1 post requires planning.  It cannot be done spur of the
> moment or else it ends up being something like reporting an Ivory-billed
> Peckerwood. Lame.
>
> 2.  The person doing the post must have a high level of visibility and
> credibility in the community.  I don't really qualify anymore because I
> only
> post a handful of times a year.
>
> 3. It must border on being believable, but, be a bit beyond.  What this is
> varies, but the idea is to just suck people in.  Make it just plausible
> enough that even experts will question it even though it is really a 1 in a
> billion chance of being real.
>
> 4. It really helps if you have cooperation or collaboration.  A classic was
> when I posted a Boat-billed Heron at Shipman Pond and Joe Hammod
> photoshopped a picture which he posted as a confirmation of the sighting,
> having charted a helicopter to travel several hundred miles in 90 minutes
> after my report. Fun!
>
> While I don't post much I do still read the list serve posts daily.  I
> think
> another reason for the lack of fun is the community has changed.  The Ohio
> Birds List Serve rarely has any interesting discussion as it did a decade
> ago, and if you do post a non sighting you get plenty of hate mail.
>  Also the Ohio birding community has become quite divided or fictionalized
> in the past 4 years or so.  When it was a private entity run by VWF III,
> discussion and having fun was encouraged.  Now birding has become, for
> some,
> an economic interest and so nothing which might discourage interest is in
> any way received without protest.
>
> Finally a whole lot of the bird related discussion had migrated to
> Facebook.
> We have some excellent groups here in Ohio and our state is on the leading
> edge of this.  I was hoping to see something there.  I would have done
> something myself but did not have time because I'm in the middle of
> transferring computers.
>
> Haans
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 5:17 PM, Joe Faulkner <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
>
> > Fellow birders with and without a sense of humor,
> >
> >      It appears that a reasonably harmless tradition on this list
> > serve has been stomped to death like a wounded pigeon on a New York
> > side walk.  I speak, of course, of the bazaar sightings and events
> > often posted on April 1st by some of the veteran  birders on this list
> > serve.  I personally thought they were fun, and for the most part,
> > quite harmless.  If a few beginning and apparently gullible birders
> > got fooled and chased something that wasn't there, then too bad.  That's
> what April Fools Day is all about.
> >  I fooled several of you and my good friend Rick Taylor into believing
> > that my dog was eaten by a Great Horned Owl.  He stayed up all night
> > trying to figure out how to keep me from killing the owl, and called
> > me a very bad name when he found out the truth.  I got many sympathy
> > emails about that dog.  Rick and I are still friends, and the dog is
> fine.
> >      Please note that the well regarded NPR does a April Fools day
> > story every year, that fools a lot of people, including me.  Two of my
> > birding colleagues have already told me that they looked for April
> > fools posts today, and were disappointed when they didn't find any.
> >      As I recall the composition of this group, we are all mature
> > (mostly)
> > adults(mostly) who can take a joke (mostly).  So, I am personally
> > hoping that next April 1, there will be a few more bazaar sightings
> > and bazaar events that fool a few gullible people.  If they are
> > beginning birders, they would still have access to calendars , and
> > would know, just like the rest of us, that it is April Fools Day.
> >
> > Joe in the woods
> > Somerset, Ohio
> > Perry County
> >
> >   By the way, I found a NESTING SNOWY OWL at the Perry County Wilds, but
> > chose not to post it.   Didn't want anyone driving down here and
> disturbing
> > the nesting owl.
> >
> > ______________________________________________________________________
> >
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