I'd already submitted a piece for Nature News (should appear in the upcoming Mar/Apr issue) when Pitta watching at the Singapore Botanic Gardens appeared on the BESG blog. It was a relief that someone else had commented publicly about photographer behaviour. I didn't really relish being the first to comment on it. Now with a second BESG blog article, Some thoughts on bird photographers, the pressure is off. My article is now just a followup.

Even when I first joined Nature Society, there were already people with behavioural problems. I'd known of cases of animals being extremely stressed by photographers and overly large groups being brought around in the night to see owls. There was an informal system of blacklisting individuals who obviously did not have the interests of nature at heart but that system obviously cannot work with today's crowd. Education and a code of conduct is needed.

Associations in other countries already have codes of conduct like:
the American Birding Association's Code of Birding Ethics,
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' Birdwatching Code,
The Nature Group of The Royal Photographic Society's Nature Photographers' Code of Practice, & The Bruce Trail Conservancy's Bruce Trail User's Code.

All codes have in common a concern about affecting wildlife and the ecosystem.

PS The Trail Studies Unit of Trent University has a nice compilation of various trail ethics codes on their website: Trail Ethics.