Subject: BIRDXXXX highlights (fwd)
Date: May 04 23:18:26 1994
From: Paul DeBenedictis - BENEDICT at SNYSYRV1.BITNET


The ABA would consider countable any Monk Parakeet colony that is listed as
established by the appropriate State/Provinceal bird records committee. Our
primary concern about the Northeast (sensu lato) is that they are small,
apparently dependent on feeders to survive the coldest parts of the winters,
and show little evidence of expansion. And to our knowledge, none of these are
considered to be established introductions by the local BRCs. Let me know if
I'm wrong!
And if you've ever seen the twig cutting antics that occur when they
decide to redecorate, you'll understand why states with large orchard
industries (New York, for example) were really concerned about the species
becoming established. They are a pest species in their native range, although
I don't think real economic damage has been quantified very well.

Paul DeBenedictis, Chair
ABA Checklist Committee
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Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 08:16:02 -0800
From: Nina Mollett <FTNDM at ALASKA.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Monk Parakeets

>
> I believe that Monk Parakeets were inadvertantly
> introduced to North America when a shipment for the pet
> trade (grr....) broke open at Kennedy International Airport.
> They don't belong in North American and should be
> extirpiated if possible. When are we going to learn from
> the starling, house sparrow, gypsy moth, etc. fiascos...

Maybe they'd work out as a replacement for the Carolina parakeet?
....
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Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 08:31:00 -0800
From: Sid Johnson <Sid.Johnson at CCMAIL.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Subject: CA. Gnatcatcher in trouble again

>From Sid Johnson, Los Angeles, CA
sid.johnson at jpl.nasa.gov

What a way to start my morning! The Los Angeles Times carried a
front page announcement that a federal court in Washington Monday
vacated the Department of the Interior's listing of the
California Gnatcatcher as threatened.

The decision centered on the scientific notes and calculations of
Johnathon L. Atwood who spent several years studying California
Gnatcathers. In 1989 he wrote a paper concluding that the
California Gnatcathers were no different from Gnatcatchers found
in large populations of Mexico and the western United States.

His paper was severly criticized by other scientists so he went
back back to his data and wrote in a 1990 report that his first
conclusions were wrong and that the California Gnatcathers were
indeed distinct.

Since Atwood had analysed the identical raw data in 1988 and 1990
and had come to different conclusions the court ruling said the
the scientific validity of the second study was challenged.

Hark! I can hear the sounds of the giant bulldozers starting up
down in Orange Countly all the way up here in LA. The developers
are dancing in the streets.

Thoroughly disgusted-
-Sid
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Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 16:37:47 -0500
From: Paul DeBenedictis <BENEDICT at SNYSYRV1.BITNET>
Subject: Re: CA. Gnatcatcher in trouble again

Someone needs to tell the court that a new subspecies of California
Gnatcatcher has been named from northern Baja California, and the subspecies
boundary is approximately coincident with the national border. The new
subspecies is P. c. atwoodi and is in Western Birds, first issue for 1994.
The race californica is almost entirely confined to California, and becomes
highly endangered by that action.
The new subspecies is rather surprisingly distinct, but I don't know if the
AOU will decide to recognize it or not.

Paul DeBenedictis
SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse
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