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American Herring Gull (1 Viewer)

Clements accepts this split. Gill and Wright and Howard and Moore do not. I therefore propose this page for deletion, with appropriate taxonomic notes under the main entry for Herring Gull. (which looks halfway decent already: "North American race smithsonianus, larger and paler than nominate and considered a separate species by some...")
 
Rasmus advised that for *Taxonomic* issues we should ignore Gill & Wright, as opposed to when we talked about naming issues. For Taxonomic issues, I think we should only change when there is a consensus between Clements and H&M; there is a disagreement between the two, and for that reason, I think we should go for status quo as far as possible. Given that there are two pages, one for American and one for other, I think that status quo equals going for having American as a separate species; that would necessitate editing the main entry for Herring gull, including changing the name (moving). In agreement with that view is that we currently have an entry for L michahellis, which as far as I know have about the same background for being split as American Herring Gull.

Cheers
Niels

PS: I think what I wrote above is analogous to what I did with the Three-toed woodpeckers that you flagged out in the previous thread (http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=96542). I think it is excellent to have these flagged for consideration, just as the I think it was excellent that you flagged the Western Curve-billed Thrasher, just to mention one.
 
As discussed elsewhere, our original standard is Sibley & Monroe 1996; they and H&M 2003 lump smithsonianus with Larus argentatus (as Herring Gull).

Merge with Larus argentatus?
 
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