Site Report: Refugio Paz de las Aves, Ecuador

Visits

• 2023-07-30: The next morning, we headed over to Angel Paz's refuge to see the cock-of-the-rock lek as well as being the famous place to see Antpittas. Unfortunately, there is a lot of feeding of the birds happening at this place and also plenty of playback of bird calls as the method to seeing the birds. There is controversy behind feeding the antpittas and also using playback to attract birds in this and other places. I will have to say that it is definitely a bit lame and much less challenging to see birds this way. I compare this to using cheat codes on video games. What is the point, really, of going into the natural area and then using electronics to trick the birds into coming closer? I would also mention that you are interfering with their business by playing tapes of their rivals in their territory. You have discarded the natural aspect at this point. Imagine if birds came into your house and broadcast threatening human voices... Feeding the birds is only slightly less lame, at least the birds are getting something out of it. A lot of people rationalize that doing something less harmful is somehow good (side note: see commercialization of environmentalism), which is why we will soon complete turning the Earth into a wasteland. Anyway, I am not proud of taking advantage of playback and feeding. On the other hand, if the antpittas were not getting fed at this place, you would have the alternative which is a clearcut pasture full of future McDonalds hamburgers. Clearly, the cattle industry is a lot worse in this case as the tourism money is protecting the forest here.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Ecuador
• South America
• World

Trips

• Ecuador