It's that time of year when rarities start showing up to odd areas and people lose their minds. It's during these times that birders and photographers make poor choices that often have negative consequences. The negative consequences affect the bird, the birders around them, and the birding community. So today Nate and Evan sit down with Greg Neise, member of the American Birding Association Recording Standards and Ethics committee to talk about ethics and birding. 

First we discuss some rarities that have been showing up in the United States. Recently there have been reports of a Great Kiskadee, Smew, Little Stint, and Whooping Swan. Many of these vagrants have been questioned as being escapees that are not actually wild birds. What provenance is used to determine whether these are wild birds out on a journey?

What is the living document that the ABA calls the "Code of Birding Ethics?" If this document isn't enforceable, how as birders can we follow these rules? What prompts changes to this document? 

All of these questions are answered and more while being entertain with unethical stories from the field.

Happy listening and Happy birding

Biography

Greg Neise developed his interests in birds, photography and conservation as a youngster growing up in Chicago, across the street from Lincoln Park Zoo. At the age of 13, he worked alongside Dr. William S. Beecher, then Director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and a pioneering ornithologist, and learned to photograph wildlife, an interest that developed into a career supplying images for magazines, newspapers, institutions and books, including National Geographic (print, web and television), Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, Nature, Lincoln Park Zoo, Miami Zoo, Jacksonville Zoo, The Field Museum and a host of others. He has served as President of the Rainforest Conservation Fund, a volunteer organization dedicated to preserving the world’s tropical rainforests. Greg is Web Master for the ABA, helps manage social media, sits in on the ABA Podcast on occasion, and of course, is a fanatical birder.

Useful Links

https://www.aba.org/aba-code-of-birding-ethics/