Mysticete
Well-known member
Some news out of the facebook ebird support group, that might prove relevant here for other folks who use the service.
Apparently sometime next year (?), they are implementing new ways of registering non-natives, allowing regional reviewers to designate something an escapee, a provisional, or an established species. Only "established" species will count toward life-lists, although provisionals will still be recorded but put down near the bottom under a separate subheading. Presumably, alerts will only be keyed to "established" species.
On the plus-side, this means that every city park's Black Swan or escaped Cockatiel won't trigger rare/need alerts, and people who use ebird exclusively for their life-lists won't have to worry about reporting things like this and having them "count"
The downside is that what is considered "established" will be based on regional checklists and local reviewers, which often have a lot of variance in how they treat different introduced populations (or whether they bother at all), and some populations recognized as "established" by the ABA are not considered established for the specific state. So a lot of ABA countable species may suddenly no longer be counted on ebird in areas where they are considered so by the ABA (good bye non-Floridian Egyptian Geese and Texas Red-vented Bulbuls...). Something to maybe keep in mind for the future.
An the discussion so far I have seen online is mostly focused on our side of the pond, but presumably this will be global, with countable established species in, say, the UK, being will be based on what their checklists are considered countable.
Apparently sometime next year (?), they are implementing new ways of registering non-natives, allowing regional reviewers to designate something an escapee, a provisional, or an established species. Only "established" species will count toward life-lists, although provisionals will still be recorded but put down near the bottom under a separate subheading. Presumably, alerts will only be keyed to "established" species.
On the plus-side, this means that every city park's Black Swan or escaped Cockatiel won't trigger rare/need alerts, and people who use ebird exclusively for their life-lists won't have to worry about reporting things like this and having them "count"
The downside is that what is considered "established" will be based on regional checklists and local reviewers, which often have a lot of variance in how they treat different introduced populations (or whether they bother at all), and some populations recognized as "established" by the ABA are not considered established for the specific state. So a lot of ABA countable species may suddenly no longer be counted on ebird in areas where they are considered so by the ABA (good bye non-Floridian Egyptian Geese and Texas Red-vented Bulbuls...). Something to maybe keep in mind for the future.
An the discussion so far I have seen online is mostly focused on our side of the pond, but presumably this will be global, with countable established species in, say, the UK, being will be based on what their checklists are considered countable.