Having tried to work with Australian taxonomists for the last 5+ years (and
largely failed), and heard the chorus of frustration at the current state of
taxonomy from almost everyone involved with birds in any way (outside of a
ivory towers), there is one thing I can say with absolute confidence about
taxonomy and honestly claim that it is a ubiquitous view among all of the
hundreds of people I’ve had long conversations or email chains with.
DO NOT get sucked in by academics who push the myth of species or subspecies
mattering. ALL BIRDS MATTER EQUALLY.
All species and subspecies are unique and irreplaceable parts of our natural
heritage and they are all equally important. Stop listening to anyone who ever
says anything to the contrary - they are no friend of birds.
For now thankfully we live in a nation that does not discriminate based on
taxonomy - species and subspecies are all equal under the law - every law in
every state, territory and nationally. They are equal in peoples hearts and
minds of many people as well as the thousands of people who dedicate their
lives to saving birds which happen to be subspecies attest. To say, infer,
suggest or insinuate to anyone that how many latin names a bird has in its
scientific name matters in any way in the real world is a disgrace.
Unfortunately taxonomists (and even more concerningly these days some highly
influential conservationists) are actively engaged in such undermining of our
birds and in so doing are putting the fate of hundreds of threatened birds at
risk. Many claim that species classifications are critical to a birds prospects
of being saved - some even explicitly claim a taxonomic change is necessary for
conservation reasons and do so in peer reviewed journals. In spreading this
facially they normalise the view that we can draw a line on Australia’s
threatened bird list and just triage anything with 3 latin names… and for what?
Some theoretical whim they are pursuing for their own edification perhaps?
Taxonomists have a right to do theoretical research of course, there is no
inherent harm in that. However they also have a responsibility to make sure
they do not doing harm while they are scratching their theoretical whims. The
reality is, that while a phylogenetic study may well elucidate new things of
theoretical interest, the sequence a bird appears on a spreadsheet or whether
the bird has 2 or 3 latin names is completely totally inconsequential in the
real world. It matters nothing to the bird itself or it’s prospects of being
saved in Australia… at least for now.
What a bird is called (i.e. it’s common name) is highly relevant to the bird -
after all how would you feel if someone changed your name without asking you or
anyone you knew? The fact that a bird is classified as a taxon of some sort is
also of obvious relevance - it cannot be protected otherwise or frankly
appreciated. But why are we still arguing about the value of species or
subspecies? are we living in the early 1900’s?!
Lamentably false claims litter the Australian taxonomic literature today and
Australian taxonomists at large are doing much real harm to birds. In 2010
CSIRO staff claimed that a controversial paper proposing a “cautious” (in the
authors own words) revision of Western Ground Parrot back to a species rank
(Pezoporus flaviventris) - was a discovery of a new species. Obviously the
CSIRO hadn’t heard of Alfred John North who listed the bird as a species
(Pezoporus flaviventris) first 100 years earlier in 1911 - fortunate for them
North was not around to avail himself of plagiarism law. Worse than this though
was the insistent claim made in the media that a change in taxonomy was needed
for effective conservation of the bird. The claim is completely without basis,
is harmful to conservation and was repeated repeated in media for years after -
it is still affecting conservation today. The fact is that a Western Ground
Parrot is a Western Ground Parrot. Taxonomists have long debated whether it is
a species or a subspecies (1911, 1912, the 1960s, 2010 and again in 2012). But
who cares if one taxonomist thinks it’s a species and another a subspecies? The
debate has been happening for 100 years, it’s nothing new (despite what the
taxonomists behind the 2010 work claimed), and it’s completely irrelevant to
anyone but those sitting in an ivory tower. The angst and falsehoods taxonomist
have forced on people fighting to save birds which happen to have tricky
taxonomic providence is completely unforgivable. Instead why not empower people
with the knowledge and conviction that we care about all birds. Is a Helmeted
Honeyeater, a Capricorn Yellow Chat or a Grey Range Thick Billed Grasswren not
deserving of existence compared with an Orange-bellied Parrot or a Regent
Honeyeater?
Allied to the harmful myths in wide circulation about species and subspecies,
the sheer level of taxonomic change today, most of it in no reference to a
coherent definition of what a species is and much of it based on a drop of
blood from a handful of individual birds with no reference to what the
inevitably arbitrary genetic distance measure means in the real world, is
costing the nation enormous (albeit largely hidden) sums of money. The reality
is each individual change in taxonomy often costs thousands of dollars to make
- data reassignment, changes in legislation and the huge amount of social
capital lost when people inevitably roll their eyes at the constant
roller-coaster change. In many cases these changes have to be replicated by
multiple organisations and governments and then there are the impossible
decisions faced by all those organisations and agencies about which which list
or competing taxonomic proposal to impliment. The cumulative cost is
inestimable an intolerable. Doubtless the cost would run into the many hundreds
of thousands of dollars (perhaps millions) in recent years alone and the burden
is increasing by the month. In some cases changes happen with zero consultation
of people busting their guts to try and save a bird - people wake up one day to
hear that the bird they have fought to embed into the conciseness of the public
they so desperately need to care have changed based on the whim of an academic
who had never even seen the bird; and Australian taxonomists are often the very
worst exponents of this arrogance.
In Australia the irrevocable fact is that it does not matter in any way, shape
or form whether a bird is a species or a subspecies. A threatened bird is a
threatened bird. How taxonomists treat them is irrelevant. Whether 2 latin
names or 3, an ‘ultrataxon’ (a terminal taxonomic unit), aka a ‘bird’, is a
unique and irreplaceable part of our natural heritage all of which need to be
saved, full stop and of discussion.
But take heart, the next time a taxonomist tells you “the way it is”, simply
ignore them. If enough of us do this, they may become irrelevant.
This is what those involved in Hooded Plover conservation have done. Eastern
and Western Hooded Plovers are seperate subspecies and the Eastern Hooded
Plover conservation programs is amazingly successful despite no Australian
taxonomist having even bothered to list them as the subspecies they so
obviously are (Western Hoodie conservation is also in motion despite that
subspecies not being listed as threatened nationally). Fortunately
conservationists involved in the fight to save the birds took on the
responsibility of classifying these two unique, endemic Australian birds and
today Eastern Hooded Plovers have the protection they so desperately need.
Eastern and Western Hooded Plovers are conspicuously missing from most
‘popular’ taxonomic lists, but even this is of no consequence. Certainly not
one single person out of the thousands and thousands involved in that
conservation program could care less if Eastern and Western Hooded Plovers are
seperate species. A geneticist would likely say they are seperate species (they
are empirically different in genetics and phenotype), but the imminently
sensible people heading Hoodie conservation realised early on that such debates
only waste limited resources and would do nothing to help the birds themselves.
Fortunately in this case taxonomists have not got their hands on the genetic
data and the conservation program for Hoodies have not had its time wasted with
irrelevant and harmful debates.
If you care about the bird you’re trying to save maybe you too should keep
taxonomists well away from your conservation program?
However it’s not always that easy is it? What about the birds that taxonomists
are already holding hostage and the ever increasing fog of uncertainty they are
condemning the Australian populous to. The ever increasing number of bird lists
and species concepts in use (there are at least 5 national/international lists
in current use in Australia and who knows how many at state/local government
level), the decades of wasted time and acrimonious debate around what a species
is - none of which have resulted in any clarity or done anything for birds.
Given the now insurmountable, unstable and contradictory classifications of
what many birds are, the hijacking of the names Australians have known and
loved for centuries by overseas-based ivory tower committees and the completely
un-consultative nature of Australian taxonomists, why do those of us at the
coalface not stand up and say enough is enough? Probably because we are too
busy trying to save these birds with almost zero resourcing while taxonomists
sit in their ivory towers?
However there is a solution. A MORATORIUM OF TAXONOMIC RESEARCH IN AUSTRALIA.
Save for un-described ultrataxa (subspecies or monotypic species - e.g. the
‘Innaminka Ringneck’ - Barnardius zonarius parkeri recently described) - which
would lack protection of course, a moratorium on taxonomic research in
Australia for a period (say 5 or even 10 years) would not result in a single
conceivable, downside for any bird or its conservation. There is equal
protection afforded to species and subspecies in every single government in the
land. Recognition of bird subspecies alongside species is increasing by the
day. There are as many conservation programs for subspecies than species
(probably more?) and for sure there are more threatened bird subspecies than
species ion the nation. The only thing a moratorium would do is to save
millions of dollars, not only in direct funding of unnecessary taxonomic
research, but more importantly the costs of managing data and legislation. A
taxonomist makes a claim in a paper for which they get resourced by taxpayers,
but they then leave everyone else to pick up the pieces from the changes they
suggest (but usually cannot agree on themselves).
The money spent of taxonomic research into Australian birds could be instead
devoted to actually helping save the birds, some of which may well go extinct
while taxonomists are still arguing about what they are. Taxonomists could be
re-employed to research other groups of biota which are under-researched
taxonomically and which do actually need to be described in order to be
protected.
A moratorium would also mean a stable listing of birds, save much heartache and
only solidify our collective ability to present a coherent message to the
Australian people at large.
But people have made careers with this fundamentally divisive field of research
and they are very, very diligent in suppressing any decent about it. Well
‘respected’ Australian journals guard against any attempt at pragmatism with an
iron fist and anyone saying something that might affect the huge sums of money
from governments taxonomists receive is mercilessly vindicated.
Some of us have spent years trying to get to a situation where birds don’t
suffer in all of this and have bent over backwards to accomodate taxonomists
and come up with lists which are complete, uo-to-date, practical, workable and
scientifically robust. There is only 1 complete list of bird species and
subspecies in Australia and fortunately it is what has been used for the Action
Plan for Australian Birds for some decades now - none of the more popular lists
even classify all of Australia’s threatened birds, yet taxon its lobby for
their use!
Unfortunately bringing taxonomists into the fold has proven a fools errand and
today we cannot even say to a member of the general public with any degree of
confidence, this is what a bird is called. We all have different bird lists now
and no longer can we even share data effectively among ourselves in order to
research whether birds are declining without literally months worth of extra
work to do for each individual research project. Governments (including the
federal government) and NGOs do not have the resources to manage basic data
given the level of taxonomic change we are now seeing.
Journals like BirdLife Australia’s Emu celebrate these “revolutions”. They may
well celebrate it from the comfort of an air-conditioned, university office.
Few at the coalface have such enthusiasm and birds are most certainly not
benefiting in any single tangible way.
We now have all sorts of ridiculous proposals for our birds primary identities
(their common names), adjudicated by overseas committees with scant Australian
representation and who steadfastly refuse to consult or involve the people who
work to save birds. The long-standing Australian English Names Committee is the
one voice which has stood up for Australian Birds and it has a 40 year history
of practical advice which have served the entire nation very well. Today it is
largely drowned out or vindicated by academic committees dominated by those who
have little if any connection to the real world.
The public is sick and tired of it - governments, NGOs and community groups
gets hundreds of complaints about the havoc taxonomists wreak every year -
people just want to call a bird so they can try and help it. But why vilify
NGOs and governments none of whom get a single dollar of support and are just
trying to clean up the mess taxonomists have made. Send your complaints to the
taxonomists - they’re the ones getting your tax dollars.
Who will stand up for birds and insist on a moratorium on bird taxonomic
research in Australia? Probably only those of us who are so fed up by this
situation we’ve given up on conservation now - but maybe that’s just me.
At least if one person in a position of influence for a single bird realises
that a perfectly viable alternative is to tell taxonomists to rack-off and
leave their bird alone, the world will be a slightly better place for birds.
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