>They're conservative, and hopefully records accepted by the RBC have
>a high degree of reliability, but given that only a subset of sightings
>are ever reported to RBCs, it is clear that they CAN'T be accurate.


I don't understand this statement. An individual record may or may not be
accurate. Whether or not you have all possible records is immaterial to the
accuracy of an individual record. All sets of occurrence records are
subsets of a population, unless you sample the entire population. You're
saying that RBC records are a subset of a subset, and that makes them
inaccurate? Why? One can reasonably argue that a record never submitted to
anyone, for all practical purposes, never becomes a record.

Kelly Cassidy
Seattle