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Fenwick's Antpitta (1 Viewer)

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But what about the illegal collecting of the birds itself?

Like said in the proaves statement, the ruling against the collector was for a breach of reporting requirements, not for illegal collecting. Illegal is always bad but with all the mess that has surrounded this situation it is important to get the facts entirely right. Could he also be guilty of illegal collection? Perhaps but that is entirely speculative. Innocent until proven guilty.
 
Like said in the proaves statement, ..... Innocent until proven guilty.

Checking Proaves website again:

"There has been a lengthy and exhaustive review by the Colombian regional governmental environmental authority - CORPOURABÁ - into the circumstances surrounding the collection by Diego Carantón of two specimens of Fenwick’s Antpitta (Grallaria fenwickorum) from the Colibrí del Sol Bird Reserve in northwestern Colombia. CORPOURABÁ has now published a report finding that Mr. Carantón had acted illegally in failing to report the collection of bird specimens from ProAves bird reserve. He was also found to have breached ProAves’ internal regulations. A fine of over USD $10,600 has been imposed by CORPOURABÁ as a consequence of Mr. Carantón’s actions." http://www.proaves.org/article.php?id_article=980

Looks guilty to me. Also looks like the "RNOA" (birdwatching clubs) have twisted this conveniently to say ProAves acted illegally, yet defend the person that was found guilty by the governmental environmental authority. Interesting.
 
Sorry Eric,
that quote proves exactly what Roy said.
Caranton "acted illegally in failing to report the collection of bird specimens"
not "acted illegally in collecting bird specimens".
It may seem like splitting hairs but I agree with Roy, it's important not to distort the facts.

It seems obvious that this entire farrago has arisen as there is a huge amount of bad blood between ProAves and the colombian birding/ornithological community - i can't even begin to untangle who is primarily responsible for that but for the sake of colombia's birds we can but hope they try to resolve their differences and move forward positively. To which end, hats off to Thomas Donegan for his attempts to draw a line under things but a big thumbs down to RNOA for spurning the opportunity presented and merely hardening their position.

James
 
As an impartial observer of this sorry affair...

Serious mistakes were made by Carantón. But the course of action decided upon by ProAves management has been a massive own-goal – a self-inflicted PR disaster for ProAves (and the American Bird Conservancy). There are no winners.
 
Thank you for posting this Richard, I have been trying to follow this story at every twist and turn. Pierre raises a good point about this RNOA release. What about the fact that the bird was collected without the proper permits? I support Diego's right to name this new species, but I believe that he has unfortunately damaged his reputation by collecting the bird's illegally. You simply cannot do that regardless of the surrounding drama and rush to publish.
 
Sorry Eric,
that quote proves exactly what Roy said.
Caranton "acted illegally in failing to report the collection of bird specimens"
not "acted illegally in collecting bird specimens".
It may seem like splitting hairs but I agree with Roy, it's important not to distort the facts.

The statement by Proaves is even clearer on what the ruling was for and what it was not for. The entire statement is in post #98.

CORPOURABA’s enforcement action against Carantón (and, through his agency, ProAves) was for a breach of reporting requirements, not for illegal collecting

If people compare my post #101 they will see that I copied what he was found guilty for directly from the Proaves statement to be sure I got it right.

Illegal is always bad but possible guilt in other things than what has been ruled is entirely speculative and will remain like that unless we get new rulings by CORPOURABA or another Government agency in the future.

Like said before: with all the mess that already has happened let's at least make sure we get the facts entirely right.
 
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Important UPDATE!
An official communication from the museum where G.fenwickorum "type feathers" were "deposited" just been released:

https://sites.google.com/site/giebu...adoalacomunidadornitologicayalaopinionpublica

(view or download attachment)

It is all in Spanish, so basically it says:

* Alonso Quevedo from Proaves gave an envelope with feathers labeled as "Grallaria sp." to Diego Lizcano, a professor at Universidad de Pamplona.

* No comment was made of the importance of the samples contained!

* The envelope was sent to the museum director unsuccessfully, so Diego Lizcano received back the envelope and it was left in the "teaching" cabinet until last week when they were asked if they had this material and they got updated of the situation with this antpitta.

* The university and museum clearly state:

1. this material sent by ProAves is not been cataloged in the museum so it still has not a proper collection number.

2. Differently to what the Grallaria fenwickorum description published by Proaves affirms, at Pamplona University we do not have a tissue collection and they do not have anything cataloged under number 699.

3. We never received from ProAves the ID of the collected species; we only received the name of the genus, the collector name (Luis Felipe Barrera) and locality (see attached photo in the document).

4. We were never informed by ProAves about the high importance of the feathers they were sending to us; not even that was a holotype, so the material was not cataloged or stored properly at our institution.

5. The material did not bring collecting permits.

6. We never received from ProAves any copy of the publication of this species or any information about the species they described.

.. after these clear points Diego Lizcano gives general background info on the museum, and states that the institution where he works, can not guarantee the preservation of this samples in the long term due to several reasons including they do not have any ornithologist there. Also, he said they decided to give this material to the proper authorities so it can be storaged in a museum where can be safely kept.

at the end he adds photos of the samples and the label it had while in their museum...

you can take a look by yourself:
https://sites.google.com/site/giebu...adoalacomunidadornitologicayalaopinionpublica

WHAT A MESS and how big lack of care by these collectors can be!!!
 
SACC Proposal # 479 has been modified to give consideration to the bird's proper scientific name - it is argued that the name Grallaria fenwickorum is invalid because 1) the author's failed to designate the type specimen unambiguously, and 2) the whereabouts of the type material is unknown. Various Articles (and some Recommendations, which are non-binding) from the Code (ICZN) are cited to support this.

Because of some ambiguity in the wording of the code (which is discussed), I expect likely that the proper scientific name of the new Antpitta won't be definitively established until a ruling by the ICZN, which could take years (and a proposal still has to be submitted to them). But in the meantime, my money is on the SACC recognizing Grallaria urraoensis as the valid name.

Liam
 
as someone said today in the Colombian ornithology national e-list:

"Parece que tantas mentiras juntas salidas a flote no se pueden tapar solamente con propaganda" = "it seems that so many lies can not be just covered with propaganda"....
 
I think they are reaching with the problems with the holotype. My guess is ICZN will back up fenwickorum
 
SACC should just author a proposal to ICZN and let them deal with it. IMHO an issue like this is more under ICZN jurisdiction

As for recognizing it as a separate species, if they really want to be cautious, they could just included both names as alternate scientific names until the ICZN comes to a conclusion
 
ICZN application

SACC should just author a proposal to ICZN and let them deal with it.
But an application to ICZN should be a clearly formulated proposal - so presumably the applicant should present a case for the adoption of one particular name (as in the current proposal to SACC). OK, I suppose it could still be on the understanding that the applicant is nevertheless neutral regarding the outcome of the Case, and simply requires an ICZN Opinion.
iczn.org/content/guidelines-case-preparation
 
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In that case, an proposal to get an ICZN Opinion would be not dissimilar to some of the SACC proposals, wherein the proposal is made and recommended against, simply to force a vote to retain the status quo.
 
more and more info come to the light... just sent this message to NEOORN:

NEOORNers following the antpitta stuff from Colombia: an official communication from Diego Caranton has been published (see below).

http://www.goat.rnoa.org/g_urraoensis/caranton.html

It is only in Spanish so not all could read, but quickly some interesting points (when using "" I am textually citing Diego Caranton text):

* "In our discussions, they [proaves] focused only in stuff like: which is going to be the name of the new species?, who are going to author it?, which would the authorship order will be?, where the paper will be published?, who is going to deal with the communications with the journal?. All these questions became absurd demands from them"
..... NOT AMAZINGLY RARE COMING FROM THEM!

* if there were going to be more than 2 authors Proaves was demanding that the first author should be Alonso Quevedo so the citations resulted in Quevedo et al. showing someone from proaves and not Diego's name that for the time after all this was not going to be affiliated to proaves.
..... AMAZING dirty stuff!..anyways, NOT AMAZINGLY RARE COMING FROM THEM!

* they also demanded that proaves authors should exceed the non-proaves ones.. so they suggested including Sara Ines Lara even though she had done NOTHING about all this process...
.... again, NOT RARE unethical demands and offers!...

* "I have to highlight that Mr. Paez [proaves Research Director] was never OK about his name being included in the author line, but proaves directors board considered that Mr. Paez as research director should be included [against his will!] as a mere working duty"
..... WOW!!!


and maybe one of the most important points (and VERY enlightening for me!) in all this text by Diego Caranton is this part: "Considering that proaves and the ACO (Asociacion Colombiana de Ornitologia) have presented different versions about what happened with the THE CONDOR submission, here I am publishing the official letter from The Condor editor Michael Patten, describing the official position of that journal about all events".... this is in English, so PLEASE READ BY YOURSELF:

http://www.goat.rnoa.org/g_urraoensis/condor.pdf

... ACTUALLY, READING THIS LETTER GIVES YOU SHARP INFO ABOUT HOW DIRTY, UNETHICAL AND DODGY ALL THIS PROCESS WAS FROM THE PROAVES SIDE... NOT ONLY ABOUT THE LEGALITY OF THE PERMITS AND HOW THEY HAVE USED THIS EXCUSE TO PRESENT THEMSELVES AS THE AFFECTED POOR-GOOD-GUYS, BUT ALSO ABOUT THEIR JOURNAL CONSERVACION COLOMBIANA SHITTY PEER-REVIEW (FASTEST IN THE WORLD... !), AND ABOUT THE 'SUPERB' CONFIDENTIALITY ABILITIES/ETHICS OF THEIR ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBERS AND RESEARCHERS... as someone said recently here on NEOORN: I just threw up in my mouth a little bit!

... just add this to all the info you have read and keep building you own opinion in this case... mine gets stronger...

*Grallaria urraoensis*

Diego.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [RNOACOL] Comunicado caso nueva especie de Grallaria
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:56:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Diego Carantón <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: RNOACOL <[email protected]>




Hola Todos

El caso de la nueva especie de Grallaria ha sido un tema bastante complicado y dificil de manejar, sin embargo creo que ha permitido que la RNOA y otros foros sirvan como espacios de analisis y discusion de este proceso; que tanto investigadores, estudiantes, observadores y aficionados entre otros se enteren de los pormenores que pueden rodear en algun momento la publicacion de un trabajo de investigación.

Lo mas importante es saber que tenemos el derecho de expresar y cuando se requiera tambien denunciar irregularidades de cualquier tipo y que el gremio o algunos de sus miembros pueden servirnos de apoyo. A mi me complace leer nuevos registros de aves y me alegra que se facilite informacion para trabajos, pero al igual que en el pais no solo podemos hablar de las buenas noticias, es importante que nos enteremos tambien de las malas.

Creo que este proceso ya esta cumpliendo su ciclo y pensaria que estamos llegando a las conclusiones, por esto es importante que de a conocer un comunicado oficial de mi parte que espero aclare algunos de los puntos. ver en el link
http://www.goat.rnoa.org/g_urraoensis/caranton.html

Quiero agradecer a todos los miembros de la RNOA por aportar sus comentarios y apoyo, lo cual nos permitio aprender y analizar una situacion que se puede dar en cualquier momento.

Gracias

DIEGO ANDRES CARANTON AYALA
Profesional Investigación y Monitoreo
Territorial Andes Occidentales
PNN Las Orquideas
Urrao-Antioquia

Grupo de Observadores de Aves del Tolima
GOAT
 
As an impartial observer of this sorry affair...
Serious mistakes were made by Carantón. But the course of action decided upon by ProAves management has been a massive own-goal – a self-inflicted PR disaster for ProAves (and the American Bird Conservancy).
I need to revise that:
As a once-impartial observer...​
PS: I regret my choice of title for this thread!
 
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PS: I regret my choice of title for this thread!

Richard, do not worry about it as this thread has been a quite informative active discussion.. actually [unfortunately] the title of this thread by you, reflects the very-effective result of Proaves "priority" to make a party and huge media noise so they are the first and only ones referenced in the mind of people about X or Y subject... in this case the antpitta authorship, buying land, conserving birds, being the only ones doing conservation work in Colombia, etc etc...

of course with all due respect for you and others, the ornithological/birding community has to leave their blindness about these topics and recognize the diversity of people, organizations and enterprises behind and working for the conservation of birds, in this specific case in Colombia!

saludos!
 
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