My September copy of British Birds is still mostly unread (and October popped through the door recently) but an item in Adrian Pitches's excellent regular feature News and Comment drew my attention.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service have established that a fifth of the US population 'count' as birders if you include anyone who has travelled more than a mile from home for the primary purpose of observing birds and/or anyone who closely observes birds at home. These yanks spent an estimated $36bn on birding goods and services - about $750 each - annually. This spend generates lots of jobs and lots of taxes for the government and, the argument goes, is a measure of the economic and therefore political clout of we birders.
I wonder how many UK citizens would qualify as birders by the same measure? A fifth of the population? Maybe - I wish the RSPB had 12 million members!
But I also wonder whether this economic angle is the right one. We are so used to seeing 'worth' and 'value' expressed in terms of money. The more these people flew, the less efficient their cars and the higher the price of telescopes then the greater worth to the US economy. Is that really a good measure of the relevance of this activity?
You can't measure everything's importance in financial terms - that's my belief anyway. The economic value is important, but of greater interest to me is that so many Americans make nature part of their lives. That's fantastic - and if you add in the hunters and walkers and fishermen too (obviously there will be lots of overlap) then the number will be very high. If those people ensure that politicians take notice of the natural world in their policies then the world will be a better place in future.
But is there much evidence that recent US Presidents have taken a very pro-nature view of the world (yes! and no!)? Maybe if 48million Americans made their views known to politicians then we would see more sign of environmental sympathy in US international policy. But you do have the chance to make your love of the natural world clear to UK politicians by signing the RSPB Letter to the Future - and please ask a friend to do so too!
My further thoughts go along these lines.The RSPB should definitely get more members than National trust which has in the past had a particularly bad customer relations department and told me when I was a member and arguing that I had forgotten my card but just wanted to walk round a N T garden that they seemed to enjoy refusing telling me they were a charity and had to maximise their finance,could not get it in there thick heads that when I closed my membership they would lose probably 100 times more than the £4 entry they were denying me.Ironically I was only member of N T because I thought I should for benefit of countryside and didn't personally get any benefit but I am sure they have now mended their ways.I have found the RSPB really brilliant in situation when I have had a bad leg giving me permission to drive much closer to the bird area so well done RSPB who seem usually very good on customer relations.My experiences of birders are almost all really good and generally those more knowledgeable than us help us in lots of ways and those who are less knowledgeable than us(somehow that sounds awful but can't think of any other way to put it)we enjoy helping the best we can.When on Mull the help between birders passing on information is invaluable as holidays overlap from one group to the next information is passed down the line and we have found birders very friendly.