Bird banding evolves with online reporting
They are small, simple bands of aluminum, most of them, with an eight- or nine-digit number boldly indented along their length and a few words and numbers in smaller script crammed above and below. Nothing fancy and certainly low-tech.
But for the lucky few among Texas’ 400,000 wingshooters who discover one of these basic, inscribed rings on the leg of a dove, duck, goose or other migratory game bird they take during autumn and winter hunting seasons, the band is anything but insignificant. It is a welcomed surprise — a rare and treasured keepsake/talisman and a key they can use to unlock parts of the mystery suffusing every bird hunters come to hold in their hands.
For wildlife scientists, researchers and managers, those metal bands are just as precious. The information the bands provide yields insights into game birds’ movements, annual survival, long-term population trends, harvest rates and other data crucial to developing, substantiating and monitoring management decisions that affect both the birds and wildfowlers.
“Bird bands have been very important tools in building our knowledge and understanding of birds and in development of management programs,” said Kevin Kraai, waterfowl program leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “But it’s a cooperative program; we depend on hunters and others who encounter banded birds to report those bands. We can’t do it without them.”
1.2 million bands a year
Each year, federally licensed bird banders capture and clamp uniquely numbered bands on approximately 1.2 million birds representing about 300 species. The process is part of the North American Bird Banding Program, jointly administered by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory and the Canadian Wildlife Service.
Then they wait for someone to encounter those banded birds, see the band and the number and instructions inscribed on it and pass along the band number as well as date and location of the encounter for inclusion into a central database used by researchers and managers.
Reporting bird bands, a vital part of the process, has long been a relatively weak link in the process; it requires the finder of a banded bird to take the time and make the effort to report it. Over the almost a century North American bird-banding efforts have been aggressively pursued, the program has made changes aimed at improving the band reporting rate.
The latest change came this summer when the program will accept reporting of bird bands only through an online process. The online reporting website — reportband. gov — is accessible by smartphones and other mobile digital devices as well as laptop and desktop computers with web connections.
The move to wholly online reporting of bird-band encounters is part of the evolution of bird-banding efforts originally designed to discover the seasonal movements, migration routes and life spans of migratory birds.
Those efforts have seen considerable changes in technology and purpose over a history in North America that goes back more than 200 years.
The first documented effort to gain insights on birds’ natural history through banding came in 1803, when famed artist/ornithologist John James Audubon tied silver threads to the legs of fledgling phoebes in Pennsylvania. When he recaptured a couple of the now-adult phoebes a year later, he had evidence the birds returned to where they were hatched to raise their own families. This behavior — natal philopatry — has been confirmed by subsequent banding data and proven a valuable piece of information for wildlife scientists and managers.
Program began in 1920s
The use of standardized bands, most often made of lightweight aluminum, began in earnest in 1920s. Within just a few years, the program yielded spectacular results, including documenting four well-defined migration routes — flyways — connecting birds’ nesting and wintering areas. Understanding of those flyways was a major development in waterfowl management, allowing tailoring of management plans and hunting regulations based on bird populations within the borders of those individual flyways instead of using an unfocused, one-size-fits-all approach.
While the banding program produced solid, invaluable information, reporting rates — the percentage of those taking or finding a banded bird reporting that encounter — were a nagging problem. There were clear reasons for that; it was hard and confusing.
Until the mid-1990s, the only way a person encoun- tering a banded bird could report that information was to decipher the necessarily minimal information on the small bands. For decades, the bands included just the unique number and “Avise Bird Band Write Wash. D.C., USA” or, “Avise Fish and Wildlife Service Write Washington D.C. USA.”
A person encountering a bird wearing one of these “Avise” bands (named for the purposeful misspelling of “Advise”) had to intuit that they were to mail a letter including the band number (and, managers hoped, information on when and where it was taken) to the vague address on the band. Many couldn’t or wouldn’t.
In the 1980s, only about a third of banded birds encountered were reported. That reporting rate was determined through research that fit some birds with additional bands that offered monetary rewards for reporting the band and even subterfuge whereby bands were surreptitiously placed on legs of birds by wardens or wildlife agency staff when checking hunters’ bags.
The reporting rate jumped significantly beginning in the mid-1990s, when the Bird Banding Lab set up a toll-free 800 number service through which band recoveries could be reported by phone. New bands included the toll-free phone number, and reporting rates more than doubled.
That reporting rate increased even more during the 2000s with the explosion of mobile phones and digital technology. About a decade ago, the Bird Banding Lab added an online band-reporting option that the program has continued to refine. New bands included both the 800 number and the online reporting website address — reportband.gov.
Two years ago, about two-thirds of band reports were filed online. The reporting rate for some species, invariably highprofile game birds, now exceeds 80 percent.
No more 800 number
The switch to wholly online reporting is aimed at continuing that trend while making the program more efficient and cost-effective. The toll-free phone line, which was at considerable expense, was decommissioned this summer. Callers to the number hear a message directing them to the online reporting site. New bands that include only the online contact information are being integrated into the program.
It takes about five minutes to report a band recovery using the online system. The program sends an email to the reporter that includes the date and location where the bird was originally banded as well as a printable certificate of appreciation that includes all data concerning the bird.
If this year is like recent ones, about 1,500 of the 100,000 or so band recoveries reported will come from birds encountered in Texas. About 80 percent of them will come from migratory game birds such as ducks, geese and doves.
Blue-winged teal and white-winged doves are the two most commonly encountered banded birds for Texas wingshooters, Kraai said. Bluewings, one of the most populous of North America’s ducks, are also one of the most often banded. And recent banding efforts in the state have focused on white-winged doves to learn more about the expanding range and population and harvest of these increasingly common game birds.
Part of the tool box
Recent improvements in technology, especially small, lightweight units that use satellite tracking to constantly monitor bird movements over long periods of time, have made banding data less important in such research. But banding data is increasingly crucial in monitoring populations and estimating harvest of some species, Kraai said.
That data combined with other hunter-provided information such as harvest surveys, and parts from game birds they have taken (wings of ducks and doves, and tail feathers of geese) have been used in recent years to support successful efforts expanding hunting season length and bag limits in Texas for some game birds such as doves and teal.
“Bands are just one of the tools we use,” Kraai said. “But they are just as valuable today as they ever were. Anything we can do to increase reporting rates benefits everyone.”