How birding's biggest record threw its online community into chaos - The Guardian

[Michael Szabo]

In late 2023, 70-year-old US birder Peter Kaestner was within striking distance of a goal that had never been accomplished: seeing more than 10,000 different species of birds in the wild. Just as he approached the finish line for his record 10,000 bird species, though, a previously unknown birder named Jason Mann flew in out of nowhere to claim he had broken the record:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... 00-species

[Jim_j]

Interesting story Michael - thanks for posting.

Cheers
Jim

[Michael Szabo]

Yes, it is. I realise that this also raises issues about the utility of birding and the carbon footprint of birding/ornithology.

There is an interesting website and book called 'Low Carbon Birding' which addresses these issues:
https://lowcarbonbirding.net/

There are also many good examples of birding and nature-based ecotourism projects that provide an important economic alternative to more carbon intensive industries from logging to mining. For example, I've been birding at Tetepare in the Solomon Islands where the customary landowners chose not to log the tropical rainforest on their island in the 1990s and instead set up their own small-scale sustainable ecotourism project there to provide an alternative income:
https://www.gotours.com.au/tetepare-eco-lodge

As this article also points out, the National Audubon Society (BirdLife partner in the USA) works closely with local communities across Latin America and the Bahamas to build sustainable ecotourism. Ecotourism can be an alternative to more carbon-intensive extractive industries from logging to mining: https://www.audubon.org/news/how-birdin ... nservation

This is another article that looks at the same issue and points out that the RSPB (BirdLife partner in the UK) has invested in energy efficiency and renewable energy at its hundreds of nature reserves as a way to offset the carbon impact of its activities (including staff travel to UK overseas territories):
https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b ... -conundrum

In Europe and Australia at least its possible to take a train or ferry to go birding in another country/state. We don't have as many transport choices here in NZ, so going overseas usually means flying (or a tourist cruise). That said, there are many ways to reduce or offset our own carbon footprint, whether its putting solar panels on your roof, using public transport, driving an EV, car-pooling, composting organic waste, household recycling, drinking oat 'milk', adopting a low-meat or vegetarian or vegan diet, or planting native trees.

Birders everywhere also support bird conservation and ornithological NGOs which do important conservation and bird research work and in the case of the annual British Birdwatching Fair, raise millions to fund bird conservation in developing countries. Many birders also report bird band sightings and contribute to projects such as the NZ Bird Atlas via eBird.