Hello Jasmijntje (and others strongly opposed to these transmitters),Jasmijntje wrote:I think (I see) that Jopi is allready offline, so I like to react on your story.
Do you realy think there are no risks involved in placing such an transmitter? (read my earlyer comment on that above)
Do you realy think that just ONE gouvernement will replace windmills or factorys or whátever because of migrating birds?
It all is in OUR benefit, nót in the benefit of the birds, we wánt to do it because we cán do it and because we want to satisfy our curiosity, we like to play God and the animals just have to addept on all the terrible things we allready did to them, not the other way around.
So, I say NO! not:"so be it" (but I don't think they will listen)
Yes, I do really think that no risks are involved. And yes, I do really think that gouvernments will actually act and try to do what's possible to protect migrating routes, nesting sites and things like that. In fact, just to give you an example: when the use of DDT, a pesticide, was banned in the USA, it was among other things because of data about a declining osprey population. (more about it here for example: http://blog.baybackpack.com/?p=1355)
In our own country, the Netherlands, the protection of what's left of nature stands very strong, and pieces of land are given back to nature again, thus creating new and more opportunities for wildlife. National parks are connected with wildlife corridors, nesting sites are protected, and so on, and so forth. So yes, gouvernments do listen. At least in our part of the world.
All that isn't done for our benefit, but for the benefit of nature, in this case the benefit of ospreys. We humans have in the past (and still do unfortunately) made a mess of nature, destroyed a lot of it, but the tide is turning. More and more people are aware of what we've done in the past and want to make up for that as much and as good as possible. Not because we like "to play god", but because we're becoming aware of our -often very negative- role in the ecosystem.
In order to be able to restore as much of the damage done by humans, we simply need exact data about nature, about these fantastic ospreys in this case, so we can protect them as good as we can and offer them the best possibilities to breed and to secure next generations of ospreys. One of the things we need more data on, is their migration. Where do they go? Where do they rest? Where do they forage? How do human structures affect migrating ospreys? Where is it safe for them to stay, and where not? And probably many other questions too.
When we know more about that, we can contribute and take action to improve their chances of survival and reproduction.
This isn't done to torture individual birds or so, but this is on the contrary done to secure a future for the entire species, so all ospreys can benefit from it.
The birds themselves aren't bothered by it. Transmitters have been attached to a huge number of wild animals before and have given us lots of information. Urmas and friends, who love these birds just as much as we do, if not more (it takes a special breed of people to be committed to a good case like theirs, and I admire them a lot for their work ), would never do anything which would harm the birds in any way. I'm 110% convinced about that.
I hope you'll understand why this is a good thing after all, when you consider the whole pcture, eventhough a transmitter isn't a pretty sight. Their rings aren't a pretty sight either, but also rings give a lot of valuable information about migrating birds. It all helps us to understand, and when we understand we can help them.
Cheers!