Teresa brings up a good point. Who wouldn't sacrifice gratifying a thousand birding hobbyists to save a life? Still, it is too bad that entirely legitimate concerns about drownings should hamper relatively harmless activities like birding. One could, for example, argue that it is the quarries' forbidden status that lures those teen-aged risk-takers to swim there after dark; after all, there are plenty of places to go swimming legally, where one may just as easily drown. Think about swimming. If you own a body of water in which a person might drown, why shouldn't you protect yourself from legal liability by forbidding trespassing (not just swimming, so as to include--just to be sure--birders who might fall in as they incautiously ogle an eagle)? Then, unless you believe swimming and birding are impermissible everywhere, you should also vote for taxes to provide other bodies of water where the government assumes the liability for such risky activities. I agree this seems unfair; if I drown in my neighbor's pond, my wife can sue for a zillion dollars, but if I drown at the state park it's tough beans. If you'd like to meet the private sector, just go park on the public roadside across from the Haul Road eagles' nest in Columbus. Rather than an understandable concern about legal liabilities, the mission of the security guards you'll meet is just corporate harassment and paranoia. Citizens United, right? It's too bad a spotting scope looks superficially like an RPG, but one reason most birders are lefties (at least as defined by righties who resent government in all its functions) is that without public wild lands most of us would be stuck inside now watching house sparrows and starlings swarming the backyard feeder. Bill Whan Columbus On 1/20/2011 9:09 AM, Teresa Backstrom wrote: > These responses are not surprising, based on two drownings in Columbus > quarries off of Dublin Rd. between the end of May and mid June 2010. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]