Ted Eubanks takes on birders

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I found this in a recent publicly viewable blog by Ted Eubanks for the American Birding Association (his blog is quite lengthy as is some repartee that a very conservative ABA member enters into with Ted, all readable at the link).  Ted always has a way with words and well-honed ability to get under peoples' skin:

"Bird conservation is fundamentally about politics, and politics is fundamentally about body count. Yet birding is cursed by being a closed community, a clique where members are more interested in impressing each other than in explaining the wonders of birds to the world outside. How else can you explain big years, big days, life lists, tics, twitches, the minute differences between the Empidonax flycatchers, and the like?

. . .  But to protect birds and birding from these recent Teaper assaults, birders and birding will have no choice but to engage the public. I have seen little evidence of a willingness to do this in the past. I see little reason to be confident of a change in the future."

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