Brent,
Officially you are correct it is a little early to remove Black Petrel off
the BARC review list. As you pointed out the rules state there should be at
least 1.5 records on average per year accepted by the committee and
sightings reported in at least 7 of the last 10 years for that to happen.
In this instance we have multiple sightings every year from Sydney and
Wollongong and to be brutally frank we will never get enough submissions
from these localities to warrant removal officially (Any volunteers to
submit records?). The committee resolved that the best approach is to
target reports from other areas within Australia such as Tasmania or
Queensland.
Similar situations occur in other parts of the country Bulwer's Petrel,
Matsudaira's Storm Petrel and Little Ringed Plover are in the same position.
So yes the rules need a bit of a tweak. Anyway, for the moment Black Petrel
is partially on the list.
Thanks
Tony
--------------
4.5 Species averaging greater than 1.5 records per year, with sightings
in at least seven years of the preceding decade, shall be removed from
the Review List by a majority vote of the Committee.
4.6 A decline in reported abundance to a level corresponding with that
defined in paragraph 4.4, may cause a species to be returned to or
placed on the Review List by a decision of the Committee.
--------------
Has this been reached for this species? If not then how can it be
removed or should the rules be amended?
Correspondingly, the problem is then when do you put the species back on
the list? This difficulty has arisen in the UK, where species have
occurred commonly and have been dropped from the reportable list, only
to then fall back into the rare category, without being noticed.
Placing them back on the list (and assessing and monitoring this) seems
much harder than actually taking them off. Can't there be an
intermediate stage between full submission of reports that go around the
Committee and completely dropping it from the list?
I'm sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes....not my intention!
Brent
<Black Petrel is a very rare visitor to NSW coastal waters between
October <and February and has in recent years been reported annually in
November <from Wollongong and Sydney. In fact between October &
December 2000 I <recall up to 12 sightings that may have involved as
many as 10-12 separate <individuals.
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