Birdwatching may not be the environmental pastime people think, with new research claiming the activity encourages pollution.
Chris Irvine, The Telegraph 21 Aug 09;
An academic study suggests competitions to spot as many species of bird in a day, along with thousands of enthusiasts visiting a garden when a rare bird is spotted, means a heavy use of transport.
Many twitchers will travel hundreds, potentially thousands, of miles just to see a bird, according to Professor Spencer Schaffner, who admits being a birdwatcher himself.
Prof Schaffner's research on "Environmental Sport" also found that many sites where new breeding grounds are being set up are often former landfill or other sites which still leak pollution.
As they have been covered with grass to make a park or wildlife area, many of the environmental hazards are still present but being ignored, particularly by birdwatchers, he said.
Prof Schaffner, from the University of Illinois, said he had noticed a big increase in competitive events for the twitchers.
It often involves having to spot as many different kinds of bird in a set period and can involve driving hundreds of miles a day to find another breed to tick off the list.
There are even some who spend their whole lives, full time, trying to spot every one of the 10,000 breeds in the world but only a handful have got as far as 8,000.
More than 5,000 people travelled to Kent recently to see a Golden-winged warbler which had been blown off course to land in Britain.
Writing in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Prof Schaffner said: "Birding is... an ostensibly green category of sport relying on both environmental protection and degradation.
"Competitive birders log many hours in their cars. Some even fully to spot a single species of bird.
"We tend to think getting out there in the outdoors and doing things that I'm calling environmental sport is part of saving the planet.
"It's considered part of being green and caring about nature. But a lot of the environments we do that in are altered, manufactured, human-modified places.
"And a lot of the stuff we do isn't necessarily in the best interest of those ideas of conservation."
Former landfill sites converted into 'natural areas' still pose "significant dangers to the environment" because of toxic chemicals just beneath the surface, he said.
Twitchers ignore the problems because the bird species seem to be thriving although many may simply be moving through the area as part of a migration path, said the professor.
