Sharing sightings
Birders, according my research, have embraced the Internet for information about birds. This includes general information about birds (websites such as Cornell’s All About Birds were mentioned by birders) but it would seem that the Internet is seen most importantly as a conduit of bird sightings. I conducted my research in Ontario, speaking with Ontario birders. When I would ask how birders decided where to go on a particular day, birders would often cite the Ontario Field Ornithologist’s (or OFO, for short) ONTBIRDS listserv as a source of information (often the primary source) for sightings.
Sharing bird sightings isn’t a new practise in birding. When I was a child visiting my grandparents, I remember the phone ringing, my grandparents answering and getting the latest news that species X had been seen at location Y. As members of the local field naturalist club, they were part of a telephone tree that spread news about rare bird sightings. After they collected the information, they would then call the two people “below” them in the tree. I imagine that in short order, the information about the birds was disseminated.
So the practise hasn’t changed. But the technology has. Before I talk about the implications of this, I want to bring in another thread into this conversation.
Winter Owls
If you visit the Bird Report Page of the Ottawa Field Naturalist Club, you’ll read this notice:
NOTE: Due to increasing and widespread concerns regarding disturbance of wildlife and property, the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club Birds Committee has adopted a policy of no longer publicizing OWLS on the Bird Status Line or on the Internet. We will continue to encourage the reporting of owls to the Bird Status Line for the purpose of maintaining local records. Please refer to the OFNC Code of Conduct.
Over the past winters, I’ve experienced first-hand and through anecdotal stories from birders interviewed, the questionable behaviour that other birders—and I’m using the term liberally, describing all those out, looking at these owls—have undertaken to see these birds of prey1. These birds have been harassed to the point that the OFNC have stopped reporting owl sightings and I applaud that action by the OFNC. I’m interested, though, why the OFNC even have to take this action and I suspect it has something to do with the technology used to share the sightings.
The combined effects of a low barrier to entry & amplification
My hypothesis is that listservs, in comparison to the previous technology of the telephone tree offer such a low barrier to entry (getting the information) that the social cues and rules that controlled behaviour when watching birds have disappeared, or are greatly reduced. I also believe that the sightings are so easily shared, that they can get amplified (shared) beyond the original (and perhaps intended) audience.
The telephone tree network
In order to get access to the network of bird sighting information prior to the Internet, my grandparents had to at least join their local field naturalist club. More likely (and I know this is the case in their case) they became involved with the organization and the people who were also club members. They knew the person who called them and the they knew the people they called. They became a community of practise, where social knowledge of individuals was a part of the practise. Yes, it was a smaller network and required more effort to get the word out (what happened, in days prior to answering machines, when you weren’t home?), but I think this worked to the network’s advantage. This doesn’t mean that there weren’t examples of birders harassing birds, but I suspect that given the fact that birders provided with rare bird sightings knew that they were operating within a distinctly social sphere—their actions were being watched and they were known to other birders. Their poor behaviour, if observed, would impact their future ability to get reported sightings.
I’ve got some data that supports this, where I was speaking to a birder about telephone trees and he shared a story where he and others would make a decision about sharing a bird sighting based on the quality of person that they would be sharing the information with. Simply, if the bird was too rare, he said, the decision would be made not to pass on the information.
The Listserv network
Today, to get bird sightings from Ontbirds, you simply need to supply an email address. Sightings are broadcast to all subscribers. No pre-existing social relationships necessary, no missed phone calls, no (rightly or wrongly) judgements of character—the information flows easily and freely. Great for getting the word out and sharing sightings. But what about for the lives of owls (and all other birds reported, for that matter)? Its a rhetorical question in my mind because I’m going to suggest that its too easy to get the information out.
This leads precisely to the situation where the OFNC stop reporting owl sightings. With the loss of the social context and agreement that existed with a telephone tree network, birders, perhaps more likely to act responsibly if they know they are being watched by fellow known birders2, are free to behave as they wish. Thankfully, most birders continue to act in a responsible manner. Enough birders show poor judgement, though, that owls are stressed by the behaviours of some birders who turn up to see them.
So what?
I’m not, however, arguing that the listserv genie will go back in the bottle; that bird sightings should only be communicated via the telephone. Information wants to be free, and no effort to stop it will work (witness the efforts of the music industry to stop file sharing). I would argue that birders need to be aware of just what they’re sharing via the sightings listserv. Perhaps sightings listservs need to “up” the barrier to entry a bit—like having to pay a small amount (say $5.00, like Metafilter) to subscribe. Even better, would be attempting to re-introduce the social. Something like requiring an existing member to vouch for you.
Ultimately, should the responsibility be on the original posters? Obviously the OFNC believes it does—by removing owl sightings, they’re not leaving it up to the discretion of individuals to make a good decision. But I’m not sure I like that solution. This is where education comes in again—knowing just what the ethical treatment of birds while birding is; what kind of behaviours are deemed acceptable by the community and what are not.
Yes, the ABA has a code of ethics. But posting this code isn’t enough. In this age of effortless bird reporting, we in the birding community need to a better job of: first, having a conversation about what role these listservs serve; second, making tough decisions about reporting that take into account the wellbeing of birds as well as birders own need to see rare or unusual birds; and third, mentoring others (ratcheting up the social) so that sightings can be shared and birds protected.
- I think it might be interesting to figure out why people have such an interest in owls over other birds—I’ll suggest that they’re predators, fairly large, and unusual all come together to make them particularly compelling—but that’s beyond the scope of this post [↩]
- and this could be exacerbated by an increasing population of birders—the percentage of birders behaving badly remains the same, there are just more of them now [↩]
Knockout post, Gavan.
A couple of thoughts from the peanut gallery:
Non-subscribers can get Ontbirds listings through the web-archive, which is updated at least daily. So there isn’t even the need for that minimum commitment.
I also wonder if Ontbirds’ “just the facts, ma’am” posting rules are part of this complex issue. There is little room for actual conversation in it, and postings that deviate even slightly from the what-where-when format get reprimanded by the moderator. In that context there isn’t really any way for subscribers to become a community. Social relationships within the forum instead derive from the different sub-groups that use it (OFO/local field naturalists, photographers’ forums, Flickr users, etc). Some of these are inevitably less aware of birding ethics, ecology, or good practices than others.
I wonder if this is a weakness of the listserv structure itself. That subscribers get pushed sightings (via email) means lots of noise with little value beyond the information shared (nevermind the “Please unsubscribe me” emails that people post). So any attempt at discussion is just seen as more noise and squashed. The sites that I see “sharing” the Ontbirds sightings do little more than re-post—kind of like a newsgroup without opportunity for reply.
The question may be would a different reporting method (oh, I’ll go ahead and say Twitter) change the ratio of signal to noise, OR is the network of reporting birds so entrenched and devoid of personal story that it, in a sense, it mandates the use of a similarly inflexible technology?
The danger, in my mind, is that this just reinforces the fact that birding is about sightings and collection (for collection’s sake). There is no story officially allowed, just who, what & where (which, I’ll say is a kind of narrative, but a pretty impoverished one). The interesting thing that I’ve noticed is that there are some times when different narratives do leak out into the listserv. But I’m going off topic…
The community that pops up elsewhere on-line (like Flickr) is an interesting point. I’ve always felt that Flickr could provide us with a different take on “wildlife photography”—the fact that people can story the photographs means that humans aren’t “disappeared” from the photos and (at its best) re-stories the encounter.
Hey Gav,
I think this is really interesting, and perhaps my comments come from my own lack of knowledge about birding, birders, or other ideas you’ve already written about. It seems that acceptance into the traditional boundaries of the birding community required some criteria of character that could be also considered matters of class, education, or other privileged status… and given that information about birds ought to continue to be free (oughtn’t it?), it seems mostly a matter of educating those who are ALREADY members of the community and having discussions about privilege that might break those barriers.
I guess what I’m getting at, is that creating a cost for information takes any of the responsibility off the shoulders of those who currently control the means of access — people who can afford the time and money it takes to go out birding now know where birds are and can tell other people that fit their own criteria. I had a student in the Bronx who liked going birding with me, I gave him a pair of binoculars and taught him what little I knew — he never would have afforded the cost of entry into a pay-for-info birding site. Perhaps what needs to be done might involve some sort of tutorial to be passed, where information about ethical birding needs to be read and a “quiz” passed to gain entry? Just an idea…
Very interesting, as usual.
J
I suspect that restricting access would have negative effects. But, just for argument’s sake daily access to the Internet is a fairly large barrier to begin with, as are binoculars (and most I spoke with say they began being birders when they got bins).
This is where *who* is a birder gets interesting. The bird rescuers that I spoke with don’t see themselves as birders, but if you look at what they do (literally collect birds) you could say it’s not that different from birding. What I would suggest is different is the ethical space that they’re operating in: their collection of birds comes from a different ontological space and operates at a different physical scale.