With Bill's permission, I'm posting his reply here (dated today, 7/1/07):
The ABA Checklist Committee formally agreed several months ago to not review any purported sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker within the ABA Area (Canada and the continental US) unless the evidence provided with the sighting is irrefutable.
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is considered a "Code 6" bird, which means that is is extinct, or probably extinct, or at least extirpated from the ABA Area.
We have chosen to maintain this category unless evidence to change the code is overwhelming .
Best regards,
Bill
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Bill Pranty
ABA Checklist Committee chair
Posts
14 comments:
Wow. Thank you Mr. Pranty. It's nice to see someone within an organization with a decision making capacity show some solid common sense.
I think this is a serious shirking of responsibility by the ABA Checklist Committee!
Pranty says they will "not review any purported sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker ... unless the evidence provided with the sighting is irrefutable."
But how do they know the evidence is irrefutable unless they review it????
Is he saying (in a very roundabout way) that they've reviewed the evidence and it is not acceptable? Is it enough that Jackson, Sibley et al, Collinson, etc have all said it's crap, so the ABA checklist committee's work is done?
But then there's the issue of the acceptance by the Arkansas state committee and continued propaganda from Cornell. That's in direct contradiction of the ABA position, so they can't just pretend it's not there and say there's nothing worth reviewing.
It's true that there isn't any evidence that should cause the ABA to change the code from "6", but the Arkansas records committee says there is, and it's up to the ABA Checklist Committee to actually review the evidence and make a decision (not to make a decision secretly and then try to avoid telling anyone the bad news).
Show some freakin' balls and do your job!! Why is refuting this whole fiasco left to a blogger and a Scot? (who are both doing a good job, by the way). Where is the ornithological community?
"how do they know the evidence is irrefutable unless they review it?"
Well, for one thing they could have read about the irrefutable evidence in Science, if it existed.
Or we all could view a plausible digital photo, if there were one, the same day it was taken. It would take someone about two seconds to upload one, unless they wanted to keep it secret until Gale Norton was available for the unveiling.
"Is it enough that Jackson, Sibley et al, Collinson, etc have all said it's crap"
No, but in addition to these people myriad top birders (no ironic parens here) have also made their views very clear, at least off the record.
Just because the Arkansas committee was foolish enough to review an extinct bird doesn't mean the ABA has to. They quite sensibly prefer to review extant birds on their review list.
The supreme court doesn't review all absurd cases from our more obscure states, does it? Why should the ABA? They have enough worthwhile things to do.
"Where is the ornithological community?"
Good question! But its not the responsible of the ABA or birders to answer it.
The ABA has sent a strong message to the CLO that their redisovery is not even worthy of review, i.e. doesn't meet the minimal standards set by birders. I hope they're listening.
In response to my anonymous comment, anonymous said: "The supreme court doesn't review all absurd cases from our more obscure states, does it?"
They do if they strongly disagree with those cases.
Think about it: the Arkansas records committee has accepted a record that most experts think is wrong. If the state of Arkansas passed a law that was generally thought to be unconstitutional, would the Supreme court actually say "this is obviously wrong so we don't even have to review it"?
By not reviewing this record the ABA effectively allows the lower court decision to stand. What kind of message does that send?
Here's my biggest problem with this decision:
ABA lists the Ivory-billed as "code 6 - presumed extinct". But now that status is challenged by Cornell publications and by the Arkansas committee. So ABA looks at all the evidence (how could they not?) and decides to leave the status unchanged. OK so far.
What they should say is: "after careful review we have determined that the evidence to date is insufficient to document the persistence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and its official status remains unchanged. We look forward to reviewing better evidence whenever that is found." And they could point to lots of precedents in their committee decisions.
Instead they shuffle their feet and pretend to get something in their eye and say, "we have no opinion because the evidence is too poor to review, so we're leaving the status unchanged".
Baloney! They reviewed the evidence, that's how they know it's not worth changing the status, but they don't want to offend anyone so they say "who us? no we weren't really looking at that, it's not important anyway, gotta go!"
But it is important. Here is a case where buckets of federal money is being spent on a species that doesn't exist, and the ABA doesn't have the balls to step up and say to USFWS (via a clear-cut checklist committee decision) we don't believe the bird is there.
wimps
The ABA-CLC works a bit different than a state CLC. I believe it is the secretary's call as to whether something will circulate. If Pranty gets his hands on good documentation, they will review. The ABA has looked at the Arkansas
"evidence" and was not impressed, hence their decision to maintain the status quo.
By not reviewing this record the ABA effectively allows the lower court decision to stand. What kind of message does that send?
ABA is not a scientific body, nor is it a higher court. In most cases, they move in accordance with a state CLC's decision.
The AOU checklist committee on Classification and Nomenclature is
the official scientific body, but there is no chain of authority over autonomous state CLCs.
"The supreme court doesn't review all absurd cases from our more obscure states, does it?"
They do if they strongly disagree with those cases.
Okay, folks, it's called "jurisdiction" and "standing." There's a lot more that goes into the decision to take a case besides "agreeing" and "disagreeing" with the result.
The message from the ABA Checklist Committee is crystal clear: the IBWO is as extinct as the dodo. If you want to prove to us that the opposite is true, show us the live dodo.
Otherwise don't waste our time with your wankery.
Just because the Arkansas committee was foolish enough to review an extinct bird doesn't mean the ABA has to.
Actually, I think they are supposed to by their own rules. I may be mistaken, but it was my understanding that the rules of the committee were that they would not review a record if it wasn't accepted by a local committee but that they would review any major record accepted locally (first ABA record, change of status from extinct, etc.).
This sounds like a dodge to me too. I think they are avoiding publishing their "not accept" opinion on the evidence submitted to the Arkansas committee. It's a political position. If the Arkansas committee had accepted a record of Chinstrap Penguin, you know they'd vote on it and publish the result and reasoning of the vote.
If it were a plausible report accepted by a respected state committee, such as the California committee, they would review it.
As one who has referreed Bill's work in the past, I can say with some authority that unedited Pranty often is miswritten Pranty.
I suspect that what he's trying to say is that the ABA-CLC does not consider the material submitted to it re recent IBWO encounters even to rise to its standards for review.
That would be a backhanded way to say that in its opinion, Arkansas acted precipitously on the evidence submitted to it.
Obiously the members of ABA Committee are as aware of the "evidence" as we all are.
I don't think that the analogy to legal decisions is apt. A CLC is not an arm of the birding police. It is merely an arbiter of the list for which it is responsible. While it's obviously silly for Arkansans to say that IBWO's are in Arkansas when ABA believes them extinct, the burden lies with Arkansas to lubricate its brainpower. ;-)
---"I suspect that what he's trying to say is that the ABA-CLC does not consider the material submitted to it re recent IBWO encounters even to rise to its standards for review." -----
That is exactly how I interpreted his comments, and it seems obvious that if the material submitted doesn't rise to the standards required for review, then it doesn't rise to the level required for acceptance. So why not say that?
Instead they have quietly not accepted the record and then tried to avoid responsibility for their non-acceptance by saying that they chose not to review it.
---"The message from the ABA Checklist Committee is crystal clear"
Maybe it is if you understand the workings of the committee and track down these unofficial comments posted on blogs. To the vast majority of birders this decision is simply ambiguous, like the rest of the Ivory-billed story, when we are desperately in need of some independent and impersonal authority.
As anonymous commented, they would review it if it was a chinstrap penguin record accepted by the Arkansas committee.
...Or maybe they wouldn't if personal politics were involved.
One starts to wonder about their credibility.
This decision is not "crystal clear" at all. Leaving the status unchanged with no review seems to be interpreted on this blog as a dagger to the heart of the CLO fantasy. But a non-decision can also be interpreted as holding out hope, an unwillingness to endorse either side, maybe even a belief that irrefutable evidence is just around the corner.
I agree with their decision to maintain the code 6, but you can't say that they have sent any clear message or done anything to inform the debate.
"a non-decision can also be interpreted as holding out hope"
For TBs just a about anything seems to be a sign of hope. Remember how they interpreted lack of sound detections as evidence that nesting season had started?
Obviously, I am tardy to the discussion. 2 points of my opinion.
1) A challenge was given that the 2007 Bill Pranty led ABA checklist committee was shirking its duty by stating 'irrefutable evidence' as justification for not adjusting the Ivory Bill status away from the status of 6. He is the authority for a committee that is respected by many organizations and ambassadors of ornithology. The rude assertion by anonymous by name calling the ABA committee to spend more effort to complain to a Federal bureaucracy is unproductive. 2) I suggest 'anonymous' post comments with your real identity. It takes some bravado to make a bold statement with your real name. After all, the ABA and Bill Pranty did. Perhaps, in addition, spend some personal effort and perhaps go through the ABA-CLC channels to offer your own expertise to avail yourself to this important cause.
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