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Birding has many benefits for your well-being. But Martha Harbison, the vice president of the Feminist Bird Club, says you should make sure your relationship with birds isn’t just about taking, but about giving back, too. You’re benefiting from the birds and the places they live, so you should do your part to care for those birds. And make sure to keep other birders in mind, too. You can hear more about how to be an ethical birder on the Bring Birds Back podcast.
BirdNote®
How To Be an Ethical Birder
Adapted from Bring Birds Back podcast
This is BirdNote.
[Birdsong: ML 191239]
Birding has many benefits for your well-being. But Martha Harbison, the vice president of the Feminist Bird Club, says you should make sure your relationship with birds isn’t just about taking, but about giving back, too.
Martha Harbison: One of the ways that I think that we talk about birding a lot is like: five ways that the outdoors will help you feel better. Or like five tips on how to see more birds. The way that it gets framed, and I am guilty of this, is fundamentally extractive. It is along a continuum of like, what can nature do for me, a person. And I think a lot of the bad behavior of birders comes from that mindset of: what am I owed? What does nature owe me? What do birds owe me? I absolutely do go out and look at birds to help regulate my mental health, but it has to be in communion with all of the other things that come with being part of a community.
Martha says birding is a two-way street: you’re benefiting from the birds and the places they live, so you should do your part to care for those birds. And make sure to keep other birders in mind, too.
Martha Harbison: It really is twofold. One is you should treat the birds and the habitats that they use with respect, and you should also treat your fellow birders with respect. How am I going to show up in this space in a way that really makes it positive, not just for me, but for everybody around me and for all the natural areas in which I visit?
You can hear more about how to be an ethical birder on the Bring Birds Back podcast. Listen in your podcast app or at BirdNote dot org. I’m Tenijah Hamilton.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. ML 191239 recorded by W. Hershberger.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote July 2022
Narrator: Tenijah Hamilton
ID# PodBBB-11-2022-07-04 PodBBB-11
