Hear, hear...
David posed some questions in his original note -
Can we have 2 checklists in Australia and BLA? Yes, we could...but why would
we want to?
Can BARC maintain a list of birds confirmed in Australia in IOC taxonomy even
if BLA officially
uses its own taxonomy? For the reasons already given in David's explanation of
the situation, yes, it should
Should staff members at BLA take over the traditional roles of committees such
as the Recommended English Names Committee, the Taxonomic
Advisory Committee and BARC?
No. We keep hearing about the difficulty of obtaining necessary funding for the
organisation so I don't think that the money
should be spent on the tasks that are currently being done adequately by
volunteers.
Regards, Clive.
-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Clifford <>
To: David James <>
Cc: Birding Aus <>; Roger McGovern
<>
Sent: Tue, Nov 12, 2013 9:11 am
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Australian bird checklists: disparity or debacle?
I, for one will continue using the IOC list, no matter what BLA decides. A
large
part ofmy list is of species sighted overseas, and I certainly don't intend
using one nomenclature for OS sightings and another for Australian sightings.
The IOC list was drawn up to help prevent confusion, I really understand why
BLA
and BLI have decided to go their own way on nomenclature, when there are
already
multiple nomenclatures already.
Carl Clifford
> On 12 Nov 2013, at 11:16, David James <> wrote:
>
> Roger, it’s a pertinent question, “what is going on with the
> Birdlife Australia Working list versus the BARC IOC Checklist?”. I’m sure
there
> are plenty of confused people who wish to know more. Since Tony Palliser is
> away, I’ll provide some information from my position as a member of BARC.
> However, I emphasize that this is only one side of the story, and I do not
> represent BARC’s position.
> BirdLife Australia Rarities Committee (BARC) needs a checklist
> that deals with bird species occurring outside Australia. BARC used to use
> the
Birds
> Australia Australian checklists, namely Christidis & Boles 1994 and Christidis
> & Boles 2008. However, these never covered birds not yet recorded in
> Australia. For those birds, BARC once followed Sibley & Monroe (1993), but in
> 2006, during the preparation of C&B 2008, Walter Boles recommended to Tony
> Palliser that BARC follow IOC checklist, which is international and online.
For
> several years BARC followed C&B for most birds but IOC for anything new to
> the Australian list. By 2010 this was becoming impossible as the 2 lists were
> not close. C&B 2008 was ageing rapidly. Furthermore, the BA’s Taxonomic
> Advisory Committee had disbanded and there was no prospect that the Australian
> checklist would be revised again in a suitable time frame. After committee
discussions and an internal
> voting process in late 2011 BARC decided to prepare a checklist of Australian
> birds using the IOC taxonomy, nomenclature and sequence.
> Before adopting or releasing the BARC checklist we informed
> the then CEO of Birds Australia (Graham Hamilton) of our intent, via a detail
> memorandum that outlined our reasons and why we had chosen the IOC system over
> other options. At that time BARC was aware that the recently published “The
Action Plan for Australian Birds 2010” by BA adopted a species list that was
based on C&B 2008 with updates from
> BLI checklist and exceptions where required. This was addressed in the memo
> with the suggestion that “Such a synthetic approach shows that an updated
> checklist has been required for some time. It is likely that this sort of
> approach cannot provide for consistency in the future”. No immediate response
> was received, so BARC released the first version of its checklist in November
> 2011, announced primarily via Birding-Aus and the BARC website.
> Some months later the memo reached staff members at the BLA
> office in Melbourne, who contacted Tony Palliser, but were not encouraging,
effectively
> saying “we have our own checklist” based on the Action plan list. It suddenly
> transpired that before long, different sections of BLA could be using
different
> checklists. Obviously this was not intended or desirable. After some debate,
it
> was decided that the issue would be put to the BA Research and Conservation
> Committee (RACC). BARC reiterated its case in a revised memo, although we
never
> saw the arguments or a case for the BLA checklist. Last I heard, perhaps a
year
> ago or more, it had been raised at the RACC once or twice but there was no
> outcome.
> Subsequently BLA released its draft checklist announced via
> the BLA e-newsletter on 1 July 2013. BARC had not been advised that the
> checklist was being released, and were taken by surprise since we were
expecting
> some resolution from the RACC first. Incidentally, the long-standing
Recommended
> English Names Committee (RENC) was taken completely unawares, and the large
> number of REN changes in the BLA checklist prompted a number of resignations
> from that committee. Apparently the RACC will decide whether the BLA draft
list
> will be adopted by BLA, or perhaps they already have. Meanwhile, BARC has not
> heard anything from the RACC.
> This has become a frustrating situation. In my view it has arisen
> through a lack of communication. I am as eager as anyone to see it resolved.
It
> is desirable to have only one Australian checklist. It is also desirable that
> the one checklist be as good as it can be. Having investigated things in
> detail, BARC is of the opinion that the IOC system is superior to the BLI
> system and the synthetic BLA system, and we have argued that case strongly.
> However, BLA has not responded in substance, except by ignoring BARC’s
> communications.
> Should BARC abandon the IOC checklist system if the RACC
> endorses the BLA checklist, or continue to argue for adoption of the IOC
system?
> Can we have 2 checklists in Australia and BLA? Can BARC maintain a list of
> birds confirmed in Australia in IOC taxonomy even if BLA officially uses its
> own taxonomy? Should staff members at BLA take over the traditional roles of
> committees such as the Recommended English Names Committee, the Taxonomic
> Advisory Committee and BARC?
>
> Cheers,
> David James
> Sydney
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