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BOU TSC disbanded (1 Viewer)

Quoting Steve Preddy on the other side: "That's a big relief. It was a close-run thing however: there were two tied votes between IOC and Birdlife, and IOC was only adopted because Andrew Harrop gave it his casting vote. That four members of BOURC think that the Birdlife list could have been a serious contender for adoption, given all that is wrong with its approach to taxonomic decision-making is incredible, and casts serious doubt in my mind on their credentials for membership of the body that maintains our national list. Now, if only they had a subcommittee of expert taxonomists who could help them understand why the Birdlife list is so flawed..."
and "It's not really about preferences, it's about whether the system meets the fundamental requirement of being scientifically defensible."

Andrew Harrop (Rutland & Shetland), Chairman
Chris McInerny (University of Glasgow), Secretary
Dawn Balmer (BTO)
Andy Brown (Natural England)
Steve Dudley (ex officio, BOU Senior Administrator)*
Paul French (ex officio, BBRC Chairman)
James Gilroy (Norfolk)
Andy Musgrove (BTO)
Jimmy Steele (Northumberland)
Andrew Stoddart (Norfolk)

* does not vote on files
Would it be helpful to identify the post-truth four? Two words Richard Klim.

Perhaps we could start with which lists each of them uses to maintain their own world lists? That information might even be in the public domain.

John
 
This will be interesting to follow. Historically, the AOU (now AOS...stupid name change) traditionally follows IOC for English names and also often references this list for taxonomic proposals. And in turn, Clements follows AOU/AOS. So...there is now some weird looping situation where Clements could be following IOC?

In UK, 'AOS' stands for Army Ornithological Society, founded several decades ago. Perhaps the former AOU might like to pay a wee annual licensing fee to this military birders' organisation for the right to use this abbreviation/acronym/trigraph?;););)
MJB
 
Quoting Steve Preddy on the other side: "That's a big relief. It was a close-run thing however: there were two tied votes between IOC and Birdlife, and IOC was only adopted because Andrew Harrop gave it his casting vote. That four members of BOURC think that the Birdlife list could have been a serious contender for adoption, given all that is wrong with its approach to taxonomic decision-making is incredible, and casts serious doubt in my mind on their credentials for membership of the body that maintains our national list. Now, if only they had a subcommittee of expert taxonomists who could help them understand why the Birdlife list is so flawed..."
and "It's not really about preferences, it's about whether the system meets the fundamental requirement of being scientifically defensible."

Andrew Harrop (Rutland & Shetland), Chairman
Chris McInerny (University of Glasgow), Secretary
Dawn Balmer (BTO)
Andy Brown (Natural England)
Steve Dudley (ex officio, BOU Senior Administrator)*
Paul French (ex officio, BBRC Chairman)
James Gilroy (Norfolk)
Andy Musgrove (BTO)
Jimmy Steele (Northumberland)
Andrew Stoddart (Norfolk)

* does not vote on files
The press release also says they're going to re-visit the decision in 5 years (i.e. 2022). Reading between the lines, that suggests to me they really wanted to chose Howard & Moore, but felt they couldn't as it wasn't available online. So if H&M is online in 5 years time, I'd suspect they'll shift over to it.
 
The press release also says they're going to re-visit the decision in 5 years (i.e. 2022). Reading between the lines, that suggests to me they really wanted to chose Howard & Moore, but felt they couldn't as it wasn't available online. So if H&M is online in 5 years time, I'd suspect they'll shift over to it.

Strikes me that switching to a completely new checklist in 5 years would reduce confidence in the British list and cause more turmoil than it's worth. I'd hope that, short of IOC disappearing completely from online, they should just stick with this decision.
 
Strikes me that switching to a completely new checklist in 5 years would reduce confidence in the British list and cause more turmoil than it's worth. I'd hope that, short of IOC disappearing completely from online, they should just stick with this decision.

Totally agree, many birders are fed up of the constant changing of names and prolific rate of splitting never mind swapping taxonomies, I know I am!



A
 
Strikes me that switching to a completely new checklist in 5 years would reduce confidence in the British list and cause more turmoil than it's worth. I'd hope that, short of IOC disappearing completely from online, they should just stick with this decision.
Agree 100%, just expressing my fears.
 
I'm the press release they talk about Clement's and IOC as if they're the same thing, as they are expecting then to almost me at the conference in 2018. To me that was the most interesting part. Is it a forgone conclusion?

I wouldn't say it's a foregone conclusion, from what I've seen of the world of avian taxonomy. But the two have the same goals and they seem to read the same papers and implement a similar set of recommendations. What prevents them from merging (in my opinion) is that Clements is more compelled to match the taxonomy preferred by the AOU, sorry AOS, whereas IOC can take a more independent view. For example IOC can split Anas crecca and carolinensis but Clements can't.
 
I wouldn't say it's a foregone conclusion, from what I've seen of the world of avian taxonomy. But the two have the same goals and they seem to read the same papers and implement a similar set of recommendations. What prevents them from merging (in my opinion) is that Clements is more compelled to match the taxonomy preferred by the AOU, sorry AOS, whereas IOC can take a more independent view. For example IOC can split Anas crecca and carolinensis but Clements can't.

I agree with what you are writing. I had heard about intent to get closer before reading it in this thread, but Clements/ebird has to keep themselves close with AOU/AOS

Niels
 
Am I correct in thinking that the BOU list is the official list in the UK for stautory purposes? If so, is there a potential conflict with the EU having adopted the BirdLife list as the authoritative classification for the purposes of EU directives? I know that this is a largely hypothetical concern, and Brexit etc, but curious to know.
 
Am I correct in thinking that the BOU list is the official list in the UK for stautory purposes? If so, is there a potential conflict with the EU having adopted the BirdLife list as the authoritative classification for the purposes of EU directives? I know that this is a largely hypothetical concern, and Brexit etc, but curious to know.

It would be an amusing final swan song if the EU decided, in the midst of everything else, to take sanctions against Britain over its bird list :-O
 
From the comments I have seen I dont think too many have an issue with the base (after all it allows for more ticks!) It's just a matter of interpretation, especially re the Fea's /Petrel situation.
 
From the comments I have seen I dont think too many have an issue with the base (after all it allows for more ticks!) It's just a matter of interpretation, especially re the Fea's /Petrel situation.

The main concerns seem to be the frustration at not being able to count Fea's and for many, not being able to count Turkestan or Daurian shrike as the vast majority of Isabelline shrikes are 1st winter birds unassigned to previously race, now species. I've seen 6 here and none have been accepted as either.

The redpoll situation also seems a little farcical - hard to explain here for those unaware but basically lesser redpoll has been granted a reprieve (from lumping) following the appearance of one in N America. IOC follow AOU guidelines who have followed BOU on this as it's a European species with no precedent. But BOU TC now disbanded having adopted IOC taxonomy (since yesterday). A very strange set of circumstances I have probably not explained very well and is doubtless better described elsewhere on the forum.
 
and for many, not being able to count Turkestan or Daurian shrike as the vast majority of Isabelline shrikes are 1st winter birds unassigned to previously race, now species. I've seen 6 here and none have been accepted as either.

On that note, does anyone know of a definitive reference of which individuals were assigned to which (sub)species?

The redpoll situation also seems a little farcical - hard to explain here for those unaware but basically lesser redpoll has been granted a reprieve (from lumping) following the appearance of one in N America. IOC follow AOU guidelines who have followed BOU on this as it's a European species with no precedent. But BOU TC now disbanded having adopted IOC taxonomy (since yesterday). A very strange set of circumstances I have probably not explained very well and is doubtless better described elsewhere on the forum.

Looks well enough explained to me, wonderfully absurd!
 
The main concerns seem to be the frustration at not being able to count Fea's and for many, not being able to count Turkestan or Daurian shrike as the vast majority of Isabelline shrikes are 1st winter birds unassigned to previously race, now species. I've seen 6 here and none have been accepted as either.

The redpoll situation also seems a little farcical - hard to explain here for those unaware but basically lesser redpoll has been granted a reprieve (from lumping) following the appearance of one in N America. IOC follow AOU guidelines who have followed BOU on this as it's a European species with no precedent. But BOU TC now disbanded having adopted IOC taxonomy (since yesterday). A very strange set of circumstances I have probably not explained very well and is doubtless better described elsewhere on the forum.

There have been no recent appearances of Lesser Redpoll (all records are from Greenland IIRC). It's more that the recent proposal by the AOU/AOS to lump all the redpolls together (which mostly focused on Common and Hoary) failed. So no change was made in Clements.

IOC certainly doesn't follow AOU guidelines...for instance IOC splits Fox Sparrow and Yellow-rumped Warbler, both of which have wide distributions in North America, which certainly are not split by the AOU/AOS.
 
The redpoll situation also seems a little farcical - hard to explain here for those unaware but basically lesser redpoll has been granted a reprieve (from lumping) following the appearance of one in N America. IOC follow AOU guidelines who have followed BOU on this as it's a European species with no precedent. But BOU TC now disbanded having adopted IOC taxonomy (since yesterday). A very strange set of circumstances I have probably not explained very well and is doubtless better described elsewhere on the forum.

There have been no recent appearances of Lesser Redpoll (all records are from Greenland IIRC). It's more that the recent proposal by the AOU/AOS to lump all the redpolls together (which mostly focused on Common and Hoary) failed. So no change was made in Clements.

It's a bit of both - when AOU/AOS rejected lumping the two regular American redpolls, Lesser was also first added to the AOU/AOS list because Greenland was added to their area at the same time.

http://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=3590836&postcount=191 ;)
 
while it's a funny story, i think it's a pretty weak argument that IOC split lesser redpoll because AOU did tbh.

firstly, they are more than capable of taking taxonomic decisions on species that fall outside AOU jurisdiction

secondly, they are more than capable of reading the (lack of) arguments for lumping/splitting lesser redpoll in the NACC voting and deciding that as a result they need to make a decision independently

thirdly, their citation for the split on their own updates list cites 7 different sources, only one of which is the NACC

having said that, i would not be surprised if all redpolls are lumped by IOC (and BOU) in the fullness of time.

cheers,
James
 
while it's a funny story, i think it's a pretty weak argument that IOC split lesser redpoll because AOU did tbh.

having said that, i would not be surprised if all redpolls are lumped by IOC (and BOU) in the fullness of time.

cheers,
James

IOC still have the Redpolls marked as a 'pending lump' or PL. So the recognition of three species of Redpoll is only a holding position until enough evidence is gathered to lump them into a single species.

But you won't get more than one Redpoll sp on Saturday's Bird Race. See you at the finish.

Ian
 
IOC still have the Redpolls marked as a 'pending lump' or PL. So the recognition of three species of Redpoll is only a holding position until enough evidence is gathered to lump them into a single species.

But you won't get more than one Redpoll sp on Saturday's Bird Race. See you at the finish.

Ian

sounds like a challenge Ian!

good luck,

James
 
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