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Bird Ringing for Science and Conservation
Bird ringers and ringing centres
By definition, “bird ringers” or “ringers”
possess a ringing licence. Though the exact way of becoming a ringer
and gaining a licence differs from country to country, the basic
principles are the same everywhere. Every examinee has to demonstrate
his knowledge of bird identification, of sexing and ageing, the
practical and administrative details of ringing, and, last but not
least, the ethical and conservational aspects of this research method.
In most countries, trainee ringers have to spend
a number of years of practice before ringing on their own. These
years of probation and the ringing courses are of great importance
in acquiring the methods of safe handling of the birds and the equipment,
becoming experienced in the identification of the different, common
and uncommon species. Also it takes a few years to meet all the
specific, rarelyused capturing methods and to become skilled in
measuring the birds.
The form and the content of the ringing licence
differ according to varying legislation in the various countries.
Ringing on strictly protected areas or capturing endangered species
usually requires special licensing and can only be maintained by
experienced ringers engaged in a particular species-conservation
or study program. Moreover, some ringing centres allow ringing only
for well-designed, accepted conservation programs.
Only a fairly small proportion of ringers are professional
scientists. They are employed mainly by universities, using bird
ringing in special research programs. A very small number of ringers
are employees of ringing stations or field assistants of certain
conservation projects.
Non-professional ringers form the majority (around
70 %) of the ringers’ community, and perform this activity
in their spare time, as voluntary work. Most of the ringers are
involved in co-ordinated projects, following the welcome general
trend of designed projects in bird ringing. Without the help of
these volunteers, it would be impossible to work ringing stations
and maintain centrally co-ordinated projects, such as Constant Effort
Sites, national and international speciesorientated projects. From
the dawn of bird ringing, many millions of records
have been gathered from all over the world mainly by those tens
of thousands of dedicated volunteers. This enormous field work,
together with the invaluable help of all the informants, forms the
basis of the numerous books, and publications, describing most of
our recent knowledge of bird migration.
Bird ringing is organized by national ringing schemes.
The responsibility of the national ringing schemes is to co-ordinate
and canalize the ringing activities. The role of EURING is to co-ordinate
analytical and field projects at a continental or flyway scale,
and also to facilitate standardization and the exchange of technical
information. Processing data gathered in this way, on a wide geographic
scale by standardised methods, gives a much more
detailed picture of bird migration, dispersion and population trends.
Regular feedback and publication of the results is essential for
the thousands of volunteers.
The numbers of birds ringed annually and
the numbers of ringers licensed by each ringing centre.
If several ringing centres operate in one state, summary
figures are given. It is estimated that 115 million birds
have been ringed in Europe during the 20th century and the
number of recoveries now exceed 2 million.
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