OK, Jerry, we are edging closer to what seems to be the only legitimate
answer right now, namely, that there is no unassailable evidence that a
distinct and definable population of Northwestern Crow exists (or, for that
matter, ever has existed) anywhere in Washington. Bill does claim that
"Johnson's 1961 paper... can easily be shown to be methodologically
flawed," so I doubt that he would base any claims on it, one way or the
other. Returning to Bill's courtroom analogy, I think that it is
appropriate to remember that OJ got off at the "beyond a reasonable doubt"
standard in the criminal trial, but they nailed him in the civil trial on
the lesser standard of "a preponderance of the evidence."

Hal Opperman
Medina, Washington
halop at accessone.com
___________________________________________

At 3:06 PM -0800 01/06/99, Jerry Tangren wrote:
>If I may answer for Bill. As of Johnson's 1961 paper, if I remember,
>the crows south to about Olympia were closer to NW crows than Am.
>>From Olympia to the Columbia River, the crows were closer to the
>Am., but showed some influence of the NW crows. Based on that
>information and on the official two crow stance of the AOU,
>the crows of Puget Sound are Northwestern. Also interesting,
>based on this criteria, the crows of the I-90 corridor at
>least east to Ellensburg are also Northwestern Crows.
>
>Having said that, we must consider that the study was completed
>40 years ago, and the situation has certainly changed since
>then, guessing that the breakpoint is probably farther north.
>However, the consensus has to be that good strong data is required
>before anyone can say anything definite.
>
>--Jerry <tangren at wsu.edu>