OK, Bill, your historical summary is interesting and useful in addressing
the first part of your proposed explanation. Let's say there are two
"good" species here. But what about the second part? What evidence have
you to back up the assertion that the Northwestern Crow "in fact is the
crow occurring in most of western Washington"?

Hal Opperman
Medina, Washington
halop at accessone.com
__________________________________________

>I'm out-of-town and can't completely comment on this thread, but
>I can briefly offer why the AOU considers the Northwestern Crow a "good"
>species, and in fact is the crow occurring in most of western Washington.
>
>There is a long and fascinating history of this species. It
>was recognized as valid (by the AOU) from before that body's
>inception until the mid-1920's, when they reduced it to a
>subspecies of American Crow only to unleash a torrent of scientific
>criticism by ornithologists of this region. Therefore, in 1945,
>despite widespread lumping of other taxa (orioles, rosy finches,
>etc.) at the time, they resplit the NW Crow.
>
>Since then, the ONLY contrary "SCIENTIFIC" evidence (that it should
>not be considered a valid species) is Johnson's 1961 paper, and
>that paper can easily be shown to be methodologically flawed.
>There is considerable other (mostly older, not necessarily
>convincing) evidence that it should be split. Thus, the NW Crow
>remains a species in much the same way that O.J. Simpson remains
>a free man: despite considerable opinion, no truly convincing
>evidence ever was offered (to the jury) to the contrary, and the
>"null" hypothesis in taxonomy is generally precedence. Criticizing
>the jury (in the crow's case, the AOU Check-list Committee) is not
>helpful.
>
>This is a great opportunity for a PhD thesis, but no one has undertaken
>it, unlike the situation with Western-Glaucous-winged Gulls. An excellent
>paper summarizing D.A. Bell's findings about those taxa was published in
>Condor in 1996. That paper also gives a good summary of the most
>currently fashionable concept of a species
>in ornithology--i.e., why those gulls both are considered "good" species
>despite a widespread hybrid zone.
>
>I hope this helps, even if it leaves out a lot of details.
>
>Bill Smith
>Grays Harbor
>pwsmith at techline.com