Trevor and other Birding-aussers:
I understand your point, but I strongly disagree with declaring a subspecies
(or any taxon) valid just for political (including conservation) reasons.
Taxonomy is a classification/naming system, nothing more or less. I believe
strongly, however, that conservationists should learn to recognize different
taxa, whatever they may be. How hard is it for a bureaucratic brain to
embrace this concept? What is so magic about species status(versus eg a
subspecies) for conservation purposes? Surely, with the generally low gene
flow between breeding populations of albatrosses, it would be a simple
concept to study, say, the birds breeding on Amsterdam Island, those on
Campbell Island, etc., as isolated breeding populations, regardless of their
taxonomic status.
Incidentally, David James mentioned some data on gene flow between a couple
of populations (currently considered to be subspecies) of albatrosses. Is
there much data on this topic? Surely these data are the key to the
taxonomy of albatrosses.
Ross
Ross Silcock
Tabor, IA
http://sidney.heartland.net/silcock
New Zealand Land and Pelagic Trips: next Nov 01
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