Splits, lumps, taxonomies, check-lists, whatever.

[Frank O'Connor <>]

Thanks to Bob Inglis for discussing this.  It is a subject that needs 
to be revisited annually.
A few comments on his detailed contribution.

C&B2008 is not the only "Australian" taxonomy.  The CSIRO has one, 
which is used by the Australian Government in legislation.  In 
Western Australia, the WA Museum has its own (which I believe is used 
in WA government legislation).  It is not a simple task to change the 
taxonomy for the Australian or WA governments.  This could very well 
mean that legislation needs to be amended to reflect the changes.
It is not a simple decision for BirdLife Australia to adopt a new 
taxonomy.  I believe that BARC has recommended that BA adopt a 
"living" taxonomy, and has suggested the IOC rather than the BirdLife 
International taxonomy.  BA has many projects such as the Atlas.  It 
is quite a big task to change the taxonomy for projects such as 
that.  It is not something that you want to do every 3 months or so 
when the IOC issues an update.  Even annually.  It is not just a case 
of reprinting forms.
Bob mentions that he wants it mostly to be able to name his 
photos.  I have my own photos, and I also catalogue the photos for 
the BirdLife WA digital image library.  I name the photos such as 
"Restless Flycatcher nana" and "Restless Flycatcher inquieta".  This 
really isn't a big deal when the taxonomy is updated.  The big deal 
is that the order of everything changes.  The order of the families, 
and the order within the families.  This requires a lot of work 
changing bird lists, spreadsheets, folders, etc.
So we need to accept that taxonomies change (and that this is a good 
thing); that there will be different taxonomies (and this can't be 
avoided); that BA will at some point update its taxonomy (to reflect 
changes such as Swan River Honeyeater, Western Ground Parrot, Western 
Grasswren, Western Quail-thrush, etc) but that it won't do it very 
often; and this discussion will (properly) reoccur at fairly frequent 
intervals on birding-aus.

_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor           Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694              Email :  

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