In response to Dennis' oratory...
I guess I am also "shocked" at the revelation of the problem as
Dennis has laid it out. Where have I been? I do not doubt the veracity
of the account of the way that some CBC's are now being conducted, but my
query is whether it is as widespread as Dennis' suggests ("...the second
group [the competitors] has stolen the show").
I have participated in a CBC or two somewhere every year for the
past 12 years, in Washington, Oregon, and Texas. I have been fortunate,
I guess, in picking CBC's not infected with the competitive ticker's
mentality. The participants with whom it has been my privilege to work
on all these CBC's have, without exception, approached the count with
deadly seriousness bordering on compulsiveness concerning precision and
accuracy. Dennis' warnings and comments are no doubt justified for the
"guilty" ones, but I just wanted to assert that it may be possible that
the "horror stories" are still in the minority. (At least I'll stack my
admittedly small sample against yours, Dennis!)
A personal testimony regarding the "faithful" who uphold the
standards Dennis' reviews for us: this year I was privileged to pair up
with Alan Peterson on a quadrant of the Walla Walla CBC. Alan has been
doing this quadrant for 10 or 15 years, and has a coverage routine whose
thoroughness, rigor, and integrity are impressive. Alan has also been
the compiler of the Walla Walla count for many years, and his competence
in and application of statistics to the WW CBC data each year is
impressive. If Dennis could witness us in these sessions led by Alan, I
believe he would emphatically approve. Part of Alan's statistical
treatment of the Walla Walla CBC data has been recently accepted for
publication and will appear soon. It is inspiring to realize that the
data you collect in these counts really means something. I think this
"sunshine" story could and should be written up for its educational
value.
More needs to be done to educate the leaders of the CBC's to emulate
the way counts can and should be conducted, and to communicate this to
their participants. Case history stories or accounts of exceptionally
well-done counts should be supplied to all CBC count leaders. We need an
instructional pamphlet (containing Dennis' comments and some good
examples of the right way to conduct a CBC), or even better a video, to
be given to every count leader.
If there is to be "competition", let it be for the best CONDUCTED
count, rather than "our list beat your list" or number of exotics seen.
Thanks again, Dennis, for starting a worthy thread.
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Larry McCloskey
Dept of Biological Sciences
Walla Walla College, College Place, WA 99324
mcclla at wwc.edu
509-527-2481
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