BOU TSC disbanded (1 Viewer)

[l_raty]

...Although, with the scope of the BOURC TSC having been enlarged to WP, and progresses within the TAC being very slow (committees of committees are rarely very efficient and fast structures), some countries have considered switching to BOU. Peter mentioned above that the Czech RC now officially follows the (defunct) TSC. I know at least Norway intended to do the same thing, not sure whether they had the time to put it into practice.

Note that this means that, in practice, most European countries indeed rely on the TSC for their taxonomy. Either entirely and directly, or indirectly through the TAC.

 

[Richard Klim]

Note that this means that, in practice, most European countries indeed rely on the TSC for their taxonomy. Either entirely and directly, or indirectly through the TAC.

Yes, it's rather ironic that most of Europe/WP will be left following a taxonomy heavily influenced by BOURC TSC, whilst BOU walks away and adopts something else entirely... :smoke:

 

[Nutcracker]

Maybe BOU are busy arranging a more formal full-EU taxonomic committee, which will announce its formation . . . the day before Cameron bans all contact between the UK and Europe following his taking us out of the EU :C

 

[sicklebill]

I am amazed at the sheer high-handedness and lack of consultation from the BOU, it would appear that no-one has a clue about what is going on! I have been an MBOU for 40 odd years and would have appreciated some sort of clues about the taxonomic situation, I find it quite extraordinary, surely someone from that body can tell us what is going on?

 

[MJB]

I am amazed at the sheer high-handedness and lack of consultation from the BOU, it would appear that no-one has a clue about what is going on! I have been an MBOU for 40 odd years and would have appreciated some sort of clues about the taxonomic situation, I find it quite extraordinary, surely someone from that body can tell us what is going on?

Didn't realise that at that time they allowed you to join at about 10 years of age...?
MJB

 

[sicklebill]

Didn't realise that at that time they allowed you to join at about 10 years of age...?
MJB

if only…...

 

[Richard Klim]

Unless it's just a temporary glitch, the AERC TAC website now seems to have disappeared...
www.aerc.eu/tac.html

 

[l_raty]

Unless it's just a temporary glitch, the AERC TAC website now seems to have disappeared...
www.aerc.eu/tac.html

The AERC website (not just the page of the TAC, thus) is being moved to another server.
(Webmaster on the AERC mailing list: "The website may go down for a few days by the end of this month. I will try to make this period as short as possible.")

 

[StevePreddy]

I have been trying to get to the bottom of exactly what has led BOU to disband their taxonomic subcommittee. As most of the members of BOU’s council are staff members of public bodies, I thought I’d try submitting some Freedom of Information Act requests, but unfortunately this was of very limited use. The responses included “sorry, we have no relevant information” and “sorry, this information will take too much staff time to collate” (both valid excuses under the Act if true). Of more interest was that several of the public bodies told me that while there was relevant information to disclose, the holder of the information wished to claim an exemption under section 40 of the Act which safeguards “personal data”. From my previous experience of FOI, this exemption is typically used to protect things like names and addresses of private individuals, or other more sensitive data, from being disclosed: typically if a document contains a mix of non-personal and personal data, the public body will “redact” (block out) the personal information, thus addressing valid privacy concerns, while being able to release the non-personal information.

The use of this exemption in this instance seems to be quite a novel one, whereby personal data is defined as “opinions which the holder wishes not to be made public”: the FOI officer of one of the public bodies concerned shared my scepticism over whether this was a valid use of section 40. The justification cited in several cases was that the individual council members serve in a private capacity rather than representing public bodies. This is despite the fact that BOU lists the public bodies against each member’s name on their website, and that the only members of BOU council who are not employed by a public body are employed by or are a senior officer of the RSPB or the BTO, suggesting organisational sponsorship is a de facto entry requirement for membership. Anyway...

I then tried a different tack and approached two BOU council members who I felt may be close to the decision (Keith Hamer, BOU’s chair of council, and Helen Baker, who works for the UK government’s conservation advisory body, JNCC) to ask if they would like to voluntarily offer up any further information. Both in large part declined. Among the reasons I put to them why releasing more information might be a wise course for the BOU was that various rumours about the decision seem to be becoming established, and that it would be far better for an accurate account to be placed in the public domain if the rumours aren’t true. The rumours that I’ve heard repeatedly are: (i) that coercion by JNCC influenced the decision, (ii) that TSC members were sidelined in the decision-making after pointing out the problems with the Birdlife methodology to BOU council, and (iii) the decision actually taken was not the publicly-stated "disband TSC and see where the land lies" but instead that BOU will be using the Birdlife taxonomy, the line about lack of a Europe-wide consensus being a cover story, so goes this rumour. I suspect some of these are extrapolation or possibly even invention, which is why I think it would be better for BOU to be more transparent. What I found fascinating though in the responses received was that while the rumour about JNCC coercion was strongly denied, no comment at all was made on the other points. Curiouser and curiouser...

 

[VATH 82]

I have been trying to get to the bottom of exactly what has led BOU to disband their taxonomic subcommittee. As most of the members of BOU’s council are staff members of public bodies, I thought I’d try submitting some Freedom of Information Act requests, but unfortunately this was of very limited use. The responses included “sorry, we have no relevant information” and “sorry, this information will take too much staff time to collate” (both valid excuses under the Act if true). Of more interest was that several of the public bodies told me that while there was relevant information to disclose, the holder of the information wished to claim an exemption under section 40 of the Act which safeguards “personal data”. From my previous experience of FOI, this exemption is typically used to protect things like names and addresses of private individuals, or other more sensitive data, from being disclosed: typically if a document contains a mix of non-personal and personal data, the public body will “redact” (block out) the personal information, thus addressing valid privacy concerns, while being able to release the non-personal information.

The use of this exemption in this instance seems to be quite a novel one, whereby personal data is defined as “opinions which the holder wishes not to be made public”: the FOI officer of one of the public bodies concerned shared my scepticism over whether this was a valid use of section 40. The justification cited in several cases was that the individual council members serve in a private capacity rather than representing public bodies. This is despite the fact that BOU lists the public bodies against each member’s name on their website, and that the only members of BOU council who are not employed by a public body are employed by or are a senior officer of the RSPB or the BTO, suggesting organisational sponsorship is a de facto entry requirement for membership. Anyway...

I then tried a different tack and approached two BOU council members who I felt may be close to the decision (Keith Hamer, BOU’s chair of council, and Helen Baker, who works for the UK government’s conservation advisory body, JNCC) to ask if they would like to voluntarily offer up any further information. Both in large part declined. Among the reasons I put to them why releasing more information might be a wise course for the BOU was that various rumours about the decision seem to be becoming established, and that it would be far better for an accurate account to be placed in the public domain if the rumours aren’t true. The rumours that I’ve heard repeatedly are: (i) that coercion by JNCC influenced the decision, (ii) that TSC members were sidelined in the decision-making after pointing out the problems with the Birdlife methodology to BOU council, and (iii) the decision actually taken was not the publicly-stated "disband TSC and see where the land lies" but instead that BOU will be using the Birdlife taxonomy, the line about lack of a Europe-wide consensus being a cover story, so goes this rumour. I suspect some of these are extrapolation or possibly even invention, which is why I think it would be better for BOU to be more transparent. What I found fascinating though in the responses received was that while the rumour about JNCC coercion was strongly denied, no comment at all was made on the other points. Curiouser and curiouser...

It's forward to the past for the genera of Gulls, Wood-warblers and Finches, at least, if BOU adopt Birdlife taxonomy. I wonder if BBRC will automatically follow the BOU if Birdlife taxonomy is the norm?

 

[lewis20126]

I'm looking forward to what Mr Collar does with Scottish Crossbill - surely that is due for the chop under BLI - can it even scrape a single point? I anticipate a political fudge (status quo until full Loxia review) but hope I am wrong.

cheers, a

 

[WelchS]

It's forward to the past for the genera of Gulls, Wood-warblers and Finches, at least, if BOU adopt Birdlife taxonomy. I wonder if BBRC will automatically follow the BOU if Birdlife taxonomy is the norm?

Personally I'd like to see what BTO will do - their stated position is they follow BOU so presumably they will again change to a new order? I appreciate the main interest of this forum is taxonomies per se, and resulting splits, but to me as bird recorder one of my prime concerns is species orders, as used in our local bird reports, bird atlases, etc; we have religiously followed BOU thus far, resulting in a multiplicity of sequences and I think now achieving a state of confusion for many "ordinary" birders trying to look things up in different publications. Indeed we have still not finalised the sequence for our own local atlas (South-east Scotland 2007-2013) due to be published next year, and the possibility looms of another period of rapid change/total upheaval of orders - indeed also some species definitions, e.g. I have written ~10k words on Hooded Crow, and hybrids thereof, for our long accounts (electronic, only "short" accounts in the published book) but if we don't get a move on that will not merit a species account any more!

I've had a look at BirdLife 8.0 and I see that in layman's terms the overall sequence of Orders runs Gamebirds, Wildfowl, Grebes, Flamingos, Pigeons, Nightjars/Swifts, Cuckoos, Rails/Cranes, Bustards, Divers, Petrels etc, Storks, Ibis/Herons, Gannets/Cormorants, Waders/Gulls/Terns/Skuas/Auks, Owls, Hawks/Eagles, Bee-eater/Roller/Kingfisher, Woodpeckers, Falcons, Passerines. Roughly, but whatever, pretty different to what we currently have, even with the recent move of Falcons. I note the bold statement there that "The BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist is currently in a transitional phase", and comments mentioned by Richard that they are due to follow suit in applying a revised taxonomic approach to passerines, "which will be incorporated into a revised BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist in due course" - so not necessarily in time for our atlas next year!

I'm surprised at the apparent lack of debate on this subject, i.e. species orders. Though I have found the odd person who agrees with me (in private) that forcing all of our publications to follow the constantly changing taxonomic sequences, produced by those studying taxonomy for their own purposes, is not practical for making accessible publications for wider readership, but it seems the consensus position is our publications should all follow the latest scientific understanding. Of course the counter-argument is always, what else would you do, how can you justify going back to a poorer understanding of taxonomic sequence? I agree it's a Hobson's choice, but any baseline could be chosen, even back to Voous/EURING, along with an open declaration that it is simply an order and does not necessarily reflect the latest scientific understanding of the sequence...

 

[Mysticete]

I've heard extensive debate on the organization of field guides (taxonomic order vs appearance vs some other system), but have never heard debate over organization of actual checklists. I think there is a certain assumption that a checklist SHOULD follow taxonomic order as judged by whatever authority is being used.

 

[WelchS]

... have never heard debate over organization of actual checklists. I think there is a certain assumption that a checklist SHOULD follow taxonomic order as judged by whatever authority is being used.

I need to clarify what I wrote in last - my concern is not to debate species orders per se, I am more than happy that the experts do that, what I'm talking about is their implementation in publications, like bird reports and the current raft of local atlases here - for example while the BTO's Bird Atlas 2007-11 follows the revised order from the recommendations of the seventh report, i.e. post the major re-ordering of the sixth report, thus significantly different from the previous atlases and many other publications to 2009, more recent atlases like Northumbria have the falcons in their new place from the ninth report. If by next year (optimistically) we have yet another radically different species order to follow it makes use of these publications cumbersome and tedious, constantly turning to the index.

Another aspect with significant practical implications is the tendency of more traditional sequences to group physically roughly "similar" species, which of course makes them more amenable to use by ordinary birders, versus the revised orders which while more scientifically correct are less user-friendly. One of the most obvious examples of this is the kinglets appearing between Raven and Blue Tit on our current list, which at first sight could not be much more different species - but as most on this forum will be aware the kinglets are only there (rather than their traditional place next to other little insect eating warbler types) as their position is incertae sedis (uncertain order) so they are put at the front (of Passerida). Presumably when it is less uncertain they will move again, and we will be flicking back and forth trying to find them once more!

I should also clarify that I do not intend any criticism of BTO, or indeed any other organisations, adopting the latest taxonomic sequence, my interest is only in whether there could be an open discussion of these issues (species orders) which do have significant impact far beyond their original purpose. In a nutshell, has any consideration been given to decoupling the species orders used by practically orientated bird publications from the ongoing scientific study of those sequences which shows no sign of abating, including both the science and politics thereof. I suspect this is the wrong place to try to initiate that debate but would appreciate if anyone could advise where else it has been/should be occurring - or if others simply don't see it as an issue?

 

[mb1848]

Is a local checklist science? Is a county atlas science? Not really. So they do not have to follow the latest and greatest understanding of bird relationships. But science does use a world check list or a national atlas so they should be modified as the understanding of science requires. On another note thanks to Steve Preddy for all his hard work. Although I am sympathetic with politicians attacking Dutch bird taxonomy hegemony. But they should know that I think Birdlife is too American.

 

[Richard Klim]

BOURC TSC 11th report

Presumably the last... :-C

Sangster, Collinson, Crochet, Kirwan, Knox, Parkin & Votier 2016. Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: 11th report. Ibis 158(1): 206–212. [pdf]

Also...

BOURC 2016. British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee: 45th Report (October 2015). Ibis 158(1): 202–205. [pdf]

PS. BOURC has reverted to using the US spelling 'Palearctic' ('Palaearctic' in TSC 10th report).

 

[Ian Lewis]

Presumably the last... :-C

Sangster, Collinson, Crochet, Kirwan, Knox, Parkin & Votier 2016. Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: 11th report. Ibis 158(1): 206–212. [

So no more on the potential split of Eastern and Western Subalpine Warblers

Ian

 

[WelchS]

Some quite detailed re-orderings there in plovers, sylvias, buntings, illustrated in attached - so Corn Bunting will no longer be the last entry on ordinary birders lists...

 

[Nutcracker]

so Corn Bunting will no longer be the last entry on ordinary birders lists...

Aye, replaced by Reed Bunting. Possibly. If they can find one :C

With all buntings getting so scarce these days, what will be the last entry on the average UK "ordinary birders list"?

 

[Richard Klim]

Some quite detailed re-orderings there in plovers, sylvias, buntings, illustrated in attached - so Corn Bunting will no longer be the last entry on ordinary birders lists...

And perhaps a sensible compromise with Sylvia and Emberiza - recognising H&M4's genera only as subgenera to avoid nomenclatural destabilisation...

Howard and Moore 4th edition - Passerines
I suspect that many ordinary birders will be less than enthusiastic about the generic rearrangements of (eg) Emberiza, Phylloscopus/Seicercus, Sylvia...