Subject: How the Xantus' got there...
Date: Jan 25 02:38:19 1998
From: "James West" - jdwest at u.washington.edu



Jack Bowling writes, in response to Dennis Paulson:

"Of course, there could be some deranged birder out there travelling to
exotic
places and smuggling birds to unlikely places then releasing them just to
spite local records committees. Which one sounds more plausible to you?"

Unfortunately, that scenario does have a non-negligible probability of its
own. I know of two instances - and there may easily be more - in which
exactly that has happened. I was visiting SE Arizona a few years ago
(ostensibly for a conference, but all Tweeters know the real reason...),
and both the local hot line and the papers were reporting the apprehension
of a birder who was caught smuggling (not for the first time, it
transpired) a S American species into the US for release and subsequent
"bagging" as a rarity. There was also a similar case some time ago in the
British papers, where the perpetrator finally drew attention to himself by
the regularity, as well as the extreme rarity, of his "finds". Call me
cynical, but if I were the betting type, I'd probably give equal
probability to the three equally unlikely scenarios - own steam in an El
Nino year, accidentally assisted passage, and sponsored one-way ticket -
and then bet on the second because it does, after all, involve an element
of the first.

James West
Seattle