[reccom] Results of vote on proposals

Thu Mar 1 12:40:33 MST 2007

I think Kristin raises many good points.  Regarding the decoder ring scenario (which I believe we may have achieved already!), may I suggest a simple request at the bottom of a simple Review List that "on top of the species listed above, any species occurring significantly out of its regular range or seasonal occurrence should also be submitted for review"  (or something to that effect).  Then we/the Secretary can weed through the dross for the records we feel fall into the review-worthy category.  I doubt we will be flooded with that many more submissions, to be honest.  I think it might be preferable to a list which is too confusing.  After all, this list is not for OUR sake, but for Joe & Jane public to  make sense of.  

Also, if we are contemplating re-opening this issue, I would like to point out why a more general comment (or a much more refined categorization) might be more appropriate in the case of the Gunnison Sage-grouse, a species of great concern so far as conservation.  So far as I know, this species' range in Utah is restricted to a small area of San Juan County near Monticello.  Yet we have now voted to say we will only review records outside of San Juan County (which is HUGE and varied).  Would we not want to know that the species occurs near Lake Powell, or Mexican Hat, or Aneth, or La Sal Junction, or even at heretofore undiscovered leks nearer to Monticello??  I would hope so.  I think we could solve this particular problem by either

1 - specifying we want to only consider records from outside a [very limited area around Monticello], or
2 - using the general phrase I proposed in the first paragraph, or
3 - not qualifying the species at all (after all, it's not as if we've been flooded with requests to review that grouse so far, so I don't see why we need to even worry about trying to restrict the review area to prevent too many records coming to us at this time).  In any case, I would argue that a species that close to eradication in Utah might warrant more careful scrutiny on our part (along with DWR).

Thank you Kristin for opening the door.

David

>>> "Kristin Purdy" <kristinpurdy at comcast.net> 3/1/2007 11:56 AM >>>
I'm amazed at how many of the proposals squeaked into acceptance or squeaked into rejection.

In response to Milt and Mark's request for feedback on the voting:

"Mark said he already has some counter proposals and it would be good to know if the "no" votes on some of the areas were for the species in the areas or for the areas themselves."

I voted against proposal 2c, requesting documentation on sightings of Sharp-tails and Common Redpolls only outside of extreme Northern Utah, due to the species. I believe Common Redpolls belong on the review list and we need sight records of them no matter where the birds occur. Had the proposal only addressed Sharp-tails, I would have accepted it. I noticed the specific review list voting on the Common Redpoll is consistent and keeps the redpoll on the list.  

I voted against proposals 2h (winter months) and 2i (summer months) for two reasons. First, I wish to keep the emphasis of our checklist as just that and not as a complex solicitation for information. I understand we need more reports and depend upon birders to submit them. But I'm afraid that the more complex our requests are, the more users will ignore them. We'll need to issue a decoder ring with each checklist. Second, I believe the list of exceptional winter birds seen in summer or vice versa (based on whichever proposal you're considering) should be much longer, then the proposal becomes too complex and I revert back to my first objection.  

Let me address my issue in the paragraph above in the broader sense and I know I'm late with my opinion. Most of the proposals were worded to request documentation, rather than to amend the checklist. I'm strongly in favor of requesting doucmentation which is why I accepted many of the geographic proposals. But I'm resistant to turning the checklist into a complex request for information. Our present checklist does that, but in simple terms because it doesn't address geographic occurence of review species. Should we as a committee pursue the amendments, my wish is to keep the codes and footnotes as simple as possible. Milt's suggestion to add the number of sightings for accidental species is a good idea because it refines checklist information for the user and the method will be simple. But requesting info on species based on geographic occurrence is not checklist info--it reflects our using the checklist request reports because we don't have another widely-distributed means of doing it. The level of complexity this adds to the checklist (due to the geographic diversity of our state) may make the checklist a big headache. 

Mark, I may have to break into the case of Excedrin Migraine I'm saving for you over gull study.

Kris

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Milt Moody ( mailto:miltonmoody at yahoo.com ) 
To: Records Committee ( mailto:reccom at utahbirds.org ) 
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 9:46 AM
Subject: [reccom] Results of vote on proposals

Greetings,

The results are in!  And to summarize:

1. The proposal to create a list of out-of- range or season species the the records committee it review was accepted 6 to 1

2. Of the proposed list for different areas or seasons, five were accepted and four were not:

Accpted were: Southern Utah, Northern Utah, Washington County, Uintah Mountains and San Juan Co.

Not accpted were:   Extreme Northern Utah,  Zion, Winter and Summer.

3. The proposal to have the option to define "special cases" passed.   5 - 2

4. Four species to be removed from the Review List are:
   Broad-winged Hawk
   Ruddy Turnstone
   Glaucous-winged Gull
   Clay-colored Sparrow
5. One species to be added to the Review list is:
   Brown Thrasher

Here's a link to a page with the details of the results:

http://utahbirds.org/ReviewBirds/RecComVoteProp2007Results.html 

It looks like we will need to refine some of the lists and areas for the out-of-range Review Species.  Mark said he already has some counter proposals and it would be good to know if the "no" votes on some of the areas were for the species in the areas or for the areas themselves.   If anyone has comments or proposed changes in some of the specific list, etc., people let us know what you're thinking.

Thanks,
Milt

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