Leg Bands For Diamond Waterfowl

[daring drift]

All diamond waterfowl should have a leg band or neck collar, the truest trophy in the waterfowl world is when you shoot a banded duck or goose. The point of a band is to provide fish and wild life conservationist with information regarding the travel and habits of waterfowl, bands and neck collars provide them with that information. When a hunter harvest a bird with a leg band, they can see when a bird was banded, the age of the bird, the location of where the bird was banded, and you can see the name of the person that banded the bird. Many hunters go an entire lifetime without harvesting a bird with a band. This would also go well in the lodges where you could display your taxidermy with the leg band.

PS. please change the duck call animation so that he is blowing the duck call through the correct side of the call hahahaha

[dark wyvern]

Diamond waterfowl are common… bands aren’t.

[median steeple]

banded ducks would be better for a great one idea in my opinion

[daring drift]

@dark wyvern regardless of which one it would be added to i think it would be cool, my wall of waterfowl in my lodge being all banded would be even better

[lucid hare]

Would prefer it as a rare or very rare “plumage” type or an additional item where you can just randomly have a bird spawn with one on without messing with the plumage (so you could get a leucistic or melanistic mallard with a band). Having all diamonds banded would just be unrealistic with how common they are in game and would be a bummer for people who want a more natural look in their lodge.

[mortal hawk]

I really hate this idea birds with bands have a purpose they are providing researchers with information sometimes for decades. Anyone who purposefully kills a tagged bird is selfish and arrogant full stop your intentionally sabotaging someone elses work interfering with years of research, monitoring and funding all to say look at me I dont care about anyone else.

Having them as a variant is alright i guess but there shouldnt be an incentive to kill them like them being diamond.

It also goes against the whole ethical hunting idea the game focuses on since often tagged birds are how populations are monitored to inform hunting rules

[daring drift]

@mortal hawk i understand your point of view, but hunters are the ones that primarily fund banding projects anyways. The only way those researchers really get valuable information is through the harvesting of bands from hunters. Hunters who follow the rules and have character are one of the truest forms of conservation. We fund almost all of the conservation efforts through the purchase of licenses and fees. The harvesting of bands gives biologist very crucial information.

[mortal hawk]

I have no problem with hunters because yes they do fund and maintain conservation efforts but bands aren’t always collected at death in a majority of cases the band needs to be on a living animal to be useful.

Certain types of population estimates rely on being able to recapture tagged individuals to make estimates on population sizes. Newer tags can have gps technology in them so they never need to be taken off to track the animal. Tagging can also be done for a wide of reasons and pulling the tags off without permission is harmful to the projects purpose. As someone who studies and is involved in wildlife conservation I have never heard of hunters collecting the tags it is almost always the researchers collecting the tags

[lucid hare]

Ethical hunters do turn the tags in, most the time (at least with ducks in my experience) when you shoot a banded bird you don’t realize it until you have it in your hand. Although you can still get it taxidermized with a “band” as taxidermy suppliers make fake ones for that purpose. Getting a tagged bird is seen as a novel experience, similar to getting a piebald buck because it’s such an unlikely occurrence so it’s something different and exciting.

[mortal hawk]

Yeah i get when it happens by accident but actively seeking out tagged animals when you have no idea what the tag is for is rude in my opinion.

I have done tagging projects before specifically capture recapture population estimates and if someone killed the animal i was working with doesn’t matter if they tell me when where or how because that isnt what im looking at they have still made my data worse and if tagged animals get taken more often that it biases my population estimates making them appear higher than normal.

[lucid hare]

That is unfortunate, I was mainly just addressing the hunters collecting tags comment, and that some people do see it as an exciting or rare animal to encounter. Personally I prefer a natural look without the band but I understand why people would like to see it in game.

[mortal hawk]

Yeah im clarifying that even though some research projects will still be able to use data from shot birds especially if they are tracking movements.
Others such as studies looking at fertility or require some form of recapture counting get harmed when the collection happens at the wrong time

[lucid hare]

I suppose another option would be to make it so people could add the fake bands to their mounts in the lodge ( some people do this irl, I’m a taxidermist so I would know lol) it could be kinda like a favorites system for your birds in your lodge, but I’m guessing most people would be disappointed with that

[lucid hare]

Seems that’s something that Fish & Game and the Research team have to cooperate on, after all Fish & Game are who controls what animals can be taken.

[mortal hawk]

Yeah that probably is the case i dont do hunting and i dont work with species that can be hunted so its not something i come across often especially since I only assit in the tagging dont make the projects.

[bleak pewter]

Are you from the U.S?

[mortal hawk]

No Australia

[daring drift]

We crave the bands in the US 😂😂

[mortal hawk]

Fair enough then my main issue was making all diamonds have bands because to me that sends the wrong message but i see there is a want for it and i wouldnt be against it being a randomised feature just not something your actively encouraged to shoot like a diamond.

I do think the idea of having banded great ones is interesting as they are supposed to represent the infamous cryptid like individuals a tag would almost heighten this making them seem special.

[bleak pewter]

The reason I ask this is that the bands in the US are put on when birds are usually hatchlings or young and are just simple little metal bands. The whole design of the band program was to see where birds were flying to and the way they know where they are flying to is by hunters harvesting banded birds and reporting the bands.

[shadow wedge]

Yeah lol they literally contribute to science that way. All my duck hunting buddies always reported theirs - it's the right thing to do.

[daring drift]

bump

[light heart]

Hello @daring drift

Thank you for your suggestion! Our team will make sure it's taken into consideration. If you have any other ideas, feel free to share them here: https://support.thehunter.com/hc/en-us/requests/new