EURING Newsletter - Volume 2, December 1998

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION ON BIRD RINGING AT THE XXIII I.O.C.

By Fernando Spina and John Tautin

As already announced during the Prague general meeting, the idea of proposing a new standing committee on bird ringing within the I.O.C. has been taken further. At the last congress, convened by Fernando Spina (EURING) and John Tautin (Bird Banding Laboratory, USA), a round table discussion has taken place on August 18th, 1998, titled ‘Present and future of scientific bird ringing’.

The RTD was attended by representatives of: Europe (EURING), USA, Kenya, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Subantarctica. A report had been forwarded from Japan, on the situation in Asia.

John Tautin welcomed attendees and opened the RTD with brief remarks about the agenda and the opportunity to begin addressing issues and needs common to national ringing programs.

An introduction to the RTD has been offered by John Tautin, followed by regional reports from: Europe: (Fernando Spina), USA & Canada: (John Tautin), Africa: (Dieter Oschadleus), Australia: (Barry Baker), Subantarctica (presented by Dieter Oschadleus). These brief reports were meant to offer an overview of the co-ordination and use of ringing world-wide, in order to understand the common aspects and problems which are shared by all ringing schemes.

Europe: Fernando Spina introduced the situation of the international organisation of bird ringing in Europe, with special emphasys on the role of EURING. Given the many national ringing schemes, EURING undoubtedly regularly deals with the problems - and the impressive potential - of co-ordinating large numbers of ringers through their national schemes. The common code to exchange ringing/recovery information has been mentioned, together with the recently started new large-scale projects. Also the different uses of data gathered through ringing for basic and applied science have been briefly mentioned, as well as their contribution to bird conservation and management.

USA and Canada: John Tautin reported that the North American bird banding program had recently been reviewed by a panel of experts with the aim of making the program more efficient and scientific. Several task forces had been appointed to further evaluate and develop the review panel's recommendations. Emphasis is on permit policies and procedures, data release policy, electronic data management, recapture/resighting data, location data, and the value of processing weights, measurements and other data collected ancillary to basic banding data. Numerous changes in operations of the US and Canadian banding offices are expected over the next two years.

Africa: Dieter Oschadleus, the recently appointed ringing coordinator for SAFRING, provided an update on the status of their program. SAFRING is attempting to have all ringers submit computerized ringing data. SAFRING recently published an extensive atlas of raptor recoveries. The possible formation of AFRING, a confederation of African ringing programs modelled after EURING, was mentioned. Dieter also reported briefly on banding in subAntarctica for John Cooper who was unable to attend the RTD.

Australia: Barry Baker provided an update on the status of the Australian Bird and Band Banding Scheme which appears to be well developed and organized with all ringing data computerised, over 700 active ringers and all ringings computerised since 1984.

Asia: Fernando Spina spoke on behalf of Kio Ozaki of Japan who was unable to attend. Asian ringing schemes held a conference in Thailand in 1997. Cooperation in the EURING swallow project, and the possible formation of ASRING, a confederation of Asian ringing programs, are the main items of current interest in Asia.

Ines S.L. Nascimiento representing CEMAVE, the Brazilian banding program, and John Cooper (SubAntarctica) were unable to attend the RTD.

Examples of the use which is made, at different levels, of the data gathered through ringing, were offered by three specific contributions: ‘The example of the BTO integrated monitoring scheme’ (Chris Wernham, BTO), ‘Perspectives in the analysis of data from the EURING Data Bank’ (Arie van Noordwijk, EURING), ‘MAPS project and its use for songbird population monitoring in the States’ (John Tautin, Bird Banding Lab, USA).

These study cases stimulated an open-floor discussion on the many different problems shared by all ringing schemes, among which the opportunity of making a wider use of data gathered through ringing. There was therefore a general agreement on the idea of setting up a better international co-ordination between ringing schemes, and from this respect EURING will offer his long-term experience as a union of over 35 national schemes. As a first step, a questionnaire will be distributed to all schemes to gather information on general aspects like: trainging and licensing, data recording by the ringers, data management by the scheme, computer facilities and specific software, co-ordinated projects, use of data.

A report will then be produced out of these data, which will be used as a working document for a workshop to be organised during the forthcoming conference on the 100 years of bird ringing.

Together with the questionnaire, schemes will be asked to appoint representatives within the committee, following the IOC protocols. This new standing committee has been formally accepted by the International Ornithological Committee during its second meeting in Durban, held on August 21st, 1998.

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