Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 07:08:13 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Ben Poscover Subject: Fw: Birding Intensity in Greater West Virginia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: John Trapp To: Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 10:43 PM Subject: Birding Intensity in Greater West Virginia > Birding intensity can be defined as a measure birding activity. It is > conceptionally related to hunting pressure and fishing pressure. Wildlife > and fisheries biologists have a keen interest in hunting and fishing > pressure, respectively, because of the relationship to the harvest of game > species. There has been relatively little interest in birding intensity, > probably because of the non-consumptive nature of birding. A 10-fold > increase in birding activity will have no, or very little, effect on bird > populations, while the same degree of increase in hunting pressure on Ruffed > Grouse could conceivably have a noticeable effect on local populations. > > How much variability is there in birding intensity among the six States in > the Greater West Virginia region (defined as West Virginia plus the > surrounding States of Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia)? > Since there are no readily available figures on the number of days or > hours that birders spend in the field each year, I have used membership in > the American Birding Association as an indirect measure of birding > intensity. I calculated three separate indices for comparison among the six > States: total number of ABA members, ABA members/100,000 adults, and ABA > members/100 square miles. > > West Virginia ranks dead last in the number of ABA members (78); 5th in the > number of ABA members/100,000 adults; and 5th in the number of ABA > members/square mile. With 5.5 ABA members/100,000 adults, West Virginia > ranks just above Kentucky (3.64), but well behind top-ranked Maryland > (15.84). West Virginia also ranks just above Kentucky in the number of ABA > members/100 square miles (0.32 versus 0.28), but again lags well behind > top-ranked Maryland (6.38). Given current levels of birding activity (as > reflected by ABA membership), and with all other things being equal, these > statistics suggest that a rare bird that showed up somewhere in Maryland > would be 18 times more likely to be detected by a birder than one that > showed up in West Virginia. And statistics don't lie! > > John L. Trapp > Martinsburg, WV > john_trapp@hotmail.com > "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making > exciting new discoveries" (A. A. Milne) > 1. John's Web Log: www.BirdStuff.blogspot.com > 2. Submit sightings of Review-list birds to the WV Bird Records Committee: > www.brooksbirdclub.org/noframes/records/html > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com > > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================