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The Raptorial Lifestyle ...... (1 Viewer)

fugl said:
“Raptor” and “bird of prey”’, long established informal terms both. Best left at that, I would think, rather than converting them to pieces of bureaucratic jargon
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All the same, it's an extremely interesting article! And very often, the terms need defining for legal purposes; the formulation of e.g. bird protection legislation requires definitions that the average individual might consider bureaucratic jargon, but they're still necessary.
 
Nutcracker said:
All the same, it's an extremely interesting article! And very often, the terms need defining for legal purposes; the formulation of e.g. bird protection legislation requires definitions that the average individual might consider bureaucratic jargon, but they're still necessary.
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Not really. In law-making etc the relevant taxa would need to be specified anyway. "For the purposes of this law (or whatever) 'birds of prey' shall be taken to comprise the following taxa" as per wherever the official definition resides. Much better, in my opinion, is to simply spell out the taxa concerned in the particular legislation (or whatever). Recall the 'partial albino' wrangle: Who needs another one about the one true meaning of 'bird of prey'?

In my opinion the phylogenetic argument for 'jargonization'--which I agree is very interesting in its own right--is just plain silly
 
Perhaps not in national law, but in funding decisions, yes - the article cites discussion as to whether the Peregrine Fund (dedicated to 'raptor protection') was able to fund the rescue operation for California Condor, because of that's eligibility (or not) to be called a raptor. If they'd decided it wasn't a raptor within the meaning of their purview, would it be extinct now?
 
Nutcracker said:
Perhaps not in national law, but in funding decisions, yes - the article cites discussion as to whether the Peregrine Fund (dedicated to 'raptor protection') was able to fund the rescue operation for California Condor, because of that's eligibility (or not) to be called a raptor. If they'd decided it wasn't a raptor within the meaning of their purview, would it be extinct now?
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Just an accident of ambiguity which happened in this case to lead to a happy outcome. Had the persons responsible known that ‘raptor‘ would be interpreted to include Cathartids they might or might not have adopted more restrictive language.
 
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fugl said:
Just an accident of ambiguity which happened in this case to lead to a happy outcome. Had the persons responsible known that ‘raptor‘ would be interpreted to include Cathartids they might or might not have adopted more restrictive language.
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That must've been a cathartic moment for them.
 
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