Dan, you have surely raised the bar for in-depth Tweeters posts.

I'll second it and ask the real Nelson Briefer to please stand up.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah
On Dec 16, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Daniel R Froehlich wrote:

> Hi all,
> Because of the possibility that Goshawk-man Nelson Briefer represents
> something more nefarious than someone who dreams goshawks into
> existence, I'll elaborate on the possibilities as I see them. If not
> interested, skip this essay. I think it's unusually important to our
> community, who we are and who we can become. What's more, it makes a
> fascinating mystery.
>
> Jim Flynn was brief. I certainly am not Briefer. But respectfully, I
> would like to offer a difference of opinion with Jim's point that the
> Goshawk thread is "simply a difference of opinion" and should
> therefore be laid to rest (see the Flynn post and the Briefer post
> appended below). In my opinion, what is at stake here is much more
> than the identity of a fly-by raptor; rather it is the authority we
> command as citizens to be able to contribute to substantive policy
> issues. Any group, be it in literary criticism, family values, or
> scientific observations, that demonstrates high standards, rigorous
> quality control, and a capacity to self-correct in the face of
> contrary evidence earns its credibility and deserves respect for its
> judgments. When the group's capacity to offer creditable judgment is
> compromised by the carelessness, incompetence, willful negligence, or
> greed of its membership or perceived membership, it is not just a
> matter of difference of opinion: what is at stake is the group's
> reputation in the larger community. I see such questions of
> reputation as a commons issue, in which the tragedy of the commons is
> precipitated not by individuals benefiting from adding their personal
> sheep to a meadow held in common, but by a failure to recognize the
> cachet that the group has achieved and by minimizing the significance
> of foundational disagreements to the level of mere differences of
> opinion.
>
> With the opportunity to democratize scientific observation through
> citizen science programs such as eBird, the stock value of this
> cachet, in my opinion, has shot up. Birdwatchers' observations could
> now and do already influence the listing and delisting of species
> under the Endangered Species Act; they could halt a multi-million
> development proposal in its tracks under the law of the land. Wielded
> honestly, without bias, scientific observations would just as easily,
> of course, demonstrate cases in which developments do not threaten
> high-value biological components. When the other stakeholders are
> honest and trustworthy, I am comfortable with that possibility.
>
> In cases, then, when the group's reputation is potentially
> compromised, it is worthwhile considering the factors leading to the
> situation and evaluating their possibility--that's the self-correcting
> part of the high standards. I have no brief with Mr. Briefer as a
> person; in fact, I couldn't identify him, even with a field guide and
> binoculars. But how his actions affect my embraced community is as
> much my business as it is his. The possibilities are limited but they
> are worth considering:
>
> 1) His observations could be correct. This is a very simple case:
> it is conceivable that Mr. B is correct and Goshawks are common in all
> the places he undertakes his observations. In this case, most other
> fellow birder's observations have been incorrect. Mr. B makes the
> assertion that this is plausible because their observations are
> "inaccurate" due to the "experience of the birder[s] relating to
> accipiters" and because of their failure to "take into consideration
> 'Goshawks with expressed recessive genes.' " On his blog he contends
> that this misapprehension extends to the entire field of ornithology
> as expressed in the received body of knowledge represented by field
> guides. I am open to his evidence: if his claim is that birders
> generally fail to recognize phenotypic characters diagnostic of
> Goshawks or worse, misidentify them, this leaves open the possibility
> of correction through field education or better yet, photographic
> documentation. We, the birding community, welcome such evidence and I
> extend an open invitation to Mr B to submit not just a collection of
> photos as on his Tucson blog, but photos with explanations
> illustrating the diagnostic characters his posts appear to invoke. If
> his claim is that some Goshawks may look exactly like other accipiters
> due, for example, to his interesting claim of "Goshawks with expressed
> recessive genes," then the evidence required cannot be obtained from
> photos. For the interest of technical clarity this is what his words
> suggest: Recessive "genes" are actually alleles that do not show up
> phenotypically when paired with a different homologous allele in
> diploid organisms like birds; recessive alleles are expressed only
> when its homologue on the other copy of the chromosome is functionally
> the same recessive allele. Presumably, Mr. B is proposing the
> testable hypothesis that the presence of particular sets of recessive
> alleles in Goshawks makes those double carriers express the phenotype
> of other accipiters. Another way of saying the same thing is that the
> phenotype that we call Goshawk is nothing more than the expression of
> a few sets of particular, dominant alleles with no further distinction
> from some other accipiters, presumably Cooper's Hawk. The genetic
> evidence for this would not be difficult to procure, and again we
> would love to see it. This would be a very important scientific
> discovery as it would be unique in the Class Aves and perhaps among
> all vertebrates. It bears some resemblance to a curious feature of
> locusts that allows the same genotype to develop into either
> medium-sized, typical adult forms or dissimilar, enormous adults, in
> response to social factors. While the mechanism is different (the
> enormous locusts are not distinguished by a particular set of dominant
> alleles, but apparently by differential gene expression), these two
> forms did fool the scientists at first; any field guides to locusts
> from that time would have been as incorrect as Mr B's claims for avian
> field guides across the entire northern hemisphere today (that's
> hundreds of field guides). More posts, blogs and photos of the type
> provided so far will not help to resolve this if that is Mr. B's
> contention.
>
> 2) if such evidence is not forthcoming and Mr B's claims about
> Goshawks are actually incorrect, then there are, by my count, four
> other possibilities motivating the actors leading to a situation like
> this which could be just written off as a difference of opinion, and
> they are, in order of increasing nefariousness and threat to the
> community: carelessness, incompetence, willful negligence, and greed.
> Carelessness and incompetence are similar and require little further
> elucidation: Mr. B could simply be making honest mistakes and stymied
> by one of the simpler identification challenges facing North American
> birders. As long as the discussion about the truth on Goshawks
> remains evidence-based, rational people can resolve the identification
> challenge they pose, in this case, by evaluating either a photo set
> described above (with diagnostic features) or with genetic studies as
> discussed above as well. Here, differences in personality may
> complicate this process but in the end the evidence will speak for
> itself and will in our well-informed, self-correcting community, in
> fact, prove to be not a matter of opinions or interpretations at all.
> Our high standards gladly encompass his challenge.
>
> Willful negligence includes an unwillingness to evaluate evidence of
> alternate hypotheses. One possibility is that actors involved are
> acting irrationally. That's fine, we're humans after all, and our
> faith in our rationality is, well, frankly irrational. As humans, we
> are quite capable of transcending our little minds and embracing
> inconsistency... or hobgoblins. No wait, someone once said that
> better. In any case, pure opinions are what is at stake in such an
> emotional tug-of-war; only once all parties agree to embrace
> rationality we can proceed to the evaluation of evidence once again as
> above. Another possibility for willful negligence involves rational
> actors responding to motivations other than answering the question
> under consideration, such as a desire to establish a reputation as a
> maverick (bloggers), to achieve notoriety (violent radicals), to
> promote a particular ideology (idealogues), to attract the attention
> of people with ideologies that benefit from the positions promoted
> (sycophants), etc.
>
> The only reason I am spending my time with this inordinately long post
> is the final motivator for those compromising a community like ours,
> which is really a subset of the reasons mobilizing willful negligence,
> namely greed. If the power of citizen science really is increasing,
> it has the potential to threaten vested interests susceptible to the
> kind of evidence the birding community could mobilize. Those
> interests include financial investments in real estate or mineral or
> other resource extraction rights subject to the law of the land and
> its enforcement and adjudication in the courts imposed by various
> layers of jurisdiction. All of these jurisdictions have mechanisms in
> place to evaluate evidence brought to bear on land use decisions
> affecting those financial interests. The holders of these financial
> interests have an easy time quantifying the benefits they can achieve
> for the community by proceeding with real estate development or
> resource extraction, such as logging. What the courts have a much
> more difficulty with is valuating the costs imposed by the economic
> activity on the quality of life represented by the loss of greenspace
> or forests and its components. To prevent these non-monetized values
> from being too degraded, the public has elected representative who
> have set legal thresholds beyond which the trade-off between benefits
> from economic activity is agreed to impose too heavy costs on our
> quality of life. Such benchmarks are enshrined in statutes such as
> the Endangered Species Act and Wetlands regulations at the federal
> level and the Growth Management Act and the Critical Areas Ordinances
> at the state level and below. These thresholds are most effectively
> monitored, maintained, and brought to the courts' attention by an
> informed and credible citizenry capable of mobilizing reliable
> observers to document those parts of the environment which really are
> valued by them as part of their quality of life and the protection of
> which is mandated by law. One effective method to prevent even this
> last defense of the public's quality of life enshrined in law--for
> private gain at the public's expense (= greed)--is to undermine the
> credibility of citizen groups and thus the standing its observations
> would enjoy in public and ultimately in a court of law. This works
> great if media reporters find sufficient disagreement within the group
> so that their story angle becomes the lack of agreement and
> inconsistency within the group rather than the issue, such as resource
> degradation, that the group is bringing to the attention of the
> public, courts, or politicians. Think about how the fictitious notion
> of "reportorial balance" derailed Americans' attention on global
> climate disruption for many years.
>
> Now, where does Mr. Briefer fall? There is no way to know a priori.
> He could be right, but if he's wrong, he could simply be in error, he
> could be trying to make waves among birders for personal gain, or he
> could be trying to undermine the credibility of the entire birding
> community and the capacity of its observations to be meaningful to the
> media and the common good of the public through its law enforcement
> mechanisms. Let's briefly look at his email below to look for clues:
>
> 1) The species: his focus on Northern Goshawk is interesting. Field
> ornithologists, both professionals and amateurs, generally master the
> identification of the presumptive species Northern Goshawk and its
> most similar congener, Cooper's Hawk early on in their career. Both
> are widespread and obtrusive when present (check out
> http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/research/papers/goshawk/), though encounters
> with birds matching the Cooper's Hawks' phenotype are much more
> frequent on our continent. Much more difficult is the distinction
> between the Cooper's and Sharp-Shinned Hawks phenotypes because these
> presumptive species overlap much more in characters. Why then is Mr.
> Briefer obsessed with the distinction between what ornithologists
> claim to be Northern Goshawk & Cooper's Hawk phenotypes when the
> distinction between the Sharpie & Cooper's Hawks phenotypes is much
> more difficult. Who knows?
>
> Here's one possibility: birders achieve recognition among other
> birders for their ability to find, identify, and confirm the presence
> of birds other birders have difficulty detecting. The recognition
> that accompanies such skills has been known to lead some unscrupulous
> ornithologists, even professionals, to meticulously modify tags on
> museum specimens in order to claim finding species in places where
> they aren't known to occur (read the NYT mag article on
> Meinertzhagen--fascinating!). Maybe Briefer wants to impress his
> fellow birders. People who have learned how to trust their own
> observations are a skeptical bunch, however. Good luck.
>
> Here's another: Northern Goshawk is a federal Species of Concern
> under the Endangered Species Act, at least its western populations.
>> From 1991 to 1999 three lawsuits presented data arguing that listing
> as endangered is warranted, and the species maintained status as a
> Candidate species, but the FWS declined to list it each time, due to
> insufficient data, in other words, not because it wasn't endangered
> but because we couldn't yet tell. Under the current president, its
> status has been downgraded to Species of Concern. In Washington
> state, the species is listed as a Candidate species, which means "that
> the Department [WA DFW] will review for possible listing as State
> Endangered, Threatened, or Sensitive. A species will be considered for
> designation as a State Candidate if sufficient evidence suggests that
> its status may meet the listing criteria defined for State Endangered,
> Threatened, or Sensitive." (from WDFW website). Hmmm. Is that
> relevant? Perhaps. During the ESA review process in the 1990's, a
> Congressional report included the following succinct statement:
> "CONTROVERSIES: If the northern goshawk, under the ESA, is listed as
> endangered or threatened, timber harvests may be reduced in a number
> of States, especially in the west." (check it out at
> http://www.cnie.org/nle/crsreports/biodiversity/biodv-23.cfm). OK, so
> timber interests might benefit should the public's data on Northern
> Goshawks be excluded by courts due to lack of credibility as a result
> of disagreements on the species' status within the community of
> birders. But those data could be important because up until now our
> ability to assess whether the species warrants listing is hampered by
> a dearth of data. How convenient...
>
> Remember, motives alone have never convicted anyone. But you ever
> build card-houses? Ever notice that once they start falling, the whole
> thing crumbles really fast?
>
> 2) Let's read Mr Briefer's email again, this time for content. Ok, it
> starts out by denigrating the oldest and most venerated citizen
> science project ever (other than hunting), the CBC. Then the email
> impugns the identification skills of birders as a class. The next few
> sentences apply sophomoric sophistry to argue that the number of
> Goshawks must be larger than reports would have you believe, because
> of inflated numbers of unidentified hawks and smaller accipiters.
> Unfortunately, the writing is sloppy, because it produces a logical
> incongruency: improvements in birders skills cannot possibly lead to
> both a decrease and an increase in numbers of unidentified accipiters
> as stated. Further, the mysterious system called "Accipiter Alert" is
> invoked to lend an air of authority to the otherwise unsupported
> pronouncements. A web search produces no link to an effective
> "Accipiter Alert" system to support the claim; in fact, the only
> accipiter alerts on the web are jay calls--thank God for attentive
> observers among the prey! I discuss the argument of the "recessive
> gene" section earlier. The suggestion concerning the change in
> frequency of the genetically odd Goshawks is a dead give-away. There
> is no basis for the assumption that the "recessive" Goshawks should
> increase in number. This obfuscation resembles classic 19th century
> charlatans using impressive language to generate the impression of
> authority while uttering technical nonsense. Notice again the use of
> language, "...will be a lack of confidence and confusion when
> observing accipiters" and "any birder who uses field marks to identify
> raptors is working under a handicap," that is designed to sow doubt
> about the legitimacy of birders' observations.
>
> What's this content about? It purports to be about evidence
> supporting the author's contention that most Goshawks are overlooked.
> But read it again. It isn't. The substantive statements are
> uniformly about the unreliability of birders, their ilk, and their
> observations. That offers some great quotes for the press to chew on
> about the quality control problems inherent to citizen science: a
> ready-made angle for a biased reporter to use when discrediting the
> community of observers. What's the saying about Fox guarding the
> chicken coop? The other statements are mostly incoherent mumbo-jumbo
> that uses some approximate language to make both unsupported and
> almost plausible claims about Goshawks--under full suspension of the
> rational faculties.
>
> 3) Let's look at Mr Briefer's credentials. Oh look, there's a blog
> with an "about me": "I have 15 years of daily field work (weather
> permitting) observing raptors. For 10 of those years I have tried to
> get toward winter-pleasant weather by traveling, 1,800 miles toward
> the South. ... Everywhere I walk, bike, drive toward, shop, recreate,
> vacation, and reside, I turn into a hawk-watch site. That is how I
> have garnered 1,000 daily-sightings of Northern Goshawks. All field
> guides need to be modified to show the true story of Goshawk habitat,
> migration, and distribution. Common Northern Goshawk (nonprofit) est.
> 2006" Here's a person that claims daily field work over 15 years and
> is based out of Anacortes, abutting one of Washington state's most
> heavily birded area, yet is apparently entirely unknown to Washington
> state's most active birding listserve, tweeters, and its hundreds of
> birders. I go birding much less often than I'd like to, but I still
> run into flesh-and-blood past and future tweeters posters whom I
> recognize by name every time I'm out. Birders are a talkative bunch;
> they have reputations to create, develop and maintain built on two
> main characteristics: the reliability of their observations and their
> personal affability. Unrepentant birders' misidentifications are an
> albatross around their neck while perennially crotchety birders are
> solitary birders. But in 2006 a fellow identifying himself as Anton
> Briefer to the state registers the formation of a corporation called
> Common Northern Goshawk. A quick web search exhausts information
> about any Anton Briefers pretty quickly. Several web sites reference
> an accomplished runner by that name, running for MIT in the 80's and
> still winning runs in the 40-49 age category these days in the Skagit.
> Having never run nor won a race in my life, I wish I had such a
> commendable web record; frankly, I'm too embarrassed to check! But no
> information about Anton's bird activities. A non-profit that doesn't
> accept donations is a non-profit that has not been granted tax-exempt
> status by the IRS. I know because I'm in the same situation, but I
> haven't yet submitted our application for tax-exempt status. Has
> Common Northern Goshawk? I'd love to see its IRS 1023 form.
> Presumably this is the same person as the one that goes by the name
> Nelson Briefer who blogs about Northern Goshawks in Anacortes, San
> Diego, Tucson and Texas, and posts occasional random comments to other
> blogs, like this one to Rebecca a falconry blogger, parrot
> afficcionado and author:
> "Just a heads up. I am the only person in the U.S., who has developed
> insights and strategies toward finding, observing, and identifing
> [sic] Northern Goshawks in places they are not supossed [sic] to be
> (in cities and suburbs).
> My other blog is www.ebrieferaolcom.blogspot.com (Goshawks of San
> Diego). In the near-works is to be Goshawks of Anacortes, Washiington
> [sic] and Goshawks of Tucson. The Best, Nelson."
>
> Posts like this are frankly bizarre. Birders who take their birding
> seriously simply do not introduce themselves this way. Nor do birders
> actually interact much with falconers on their blogs; what is a birder
> singularly obsessed with Northern Goshawks writing to a falconer with
> an anatum/cassinii hybrid Peregrine for? To me the weirdest thing is
> the apparent contingency that Mr. B implies: that his NOGO ID skills
> ONLY apply in those areas where conventional wisdom suggests they
> wouldn't occur. The blog postings on his own blog are strange as
> well. Witnesses like Doug Irbey and Ken Boyle are regularly
> identified by name in posts that mention "NGs". "Doug Irbey"
> generates a total of 0 google hits, while Ken Boyles are ubiquitous,
> though none appears to be connected to any bird-knowledgeable
> background. Who lists witnesses for their birding blog for species as
> widespread though rare as Northern Goshawk? What's the point of
> listing anonymous witnesses? Who refuses to accept commentary on
> their blog but lists their cell phone number in an Orwellian show of
> transparency? Call his number 360 420 9320. I have never gotten a
> person on the line. Leave a message to make a date to learn about
> Accipiter Alerts. We all would love to have evidence that overthrows
> an erroneous paradigm.
>
> So who is this guy?
>
> A brilliant loner who has unearthed the secret to the status of the
> Northern Goshawk in North America? What about the conspecific
> Goshawks in Europe? in Asia? The entire ornithological community from
> amateurs to professionals awaits your evidence with great excitement.
> Contact me; I will gladly help you find an outlet for convincing
> evidence of your discovery, as I described above! I would love to be
> associated with such a coup.
>
> A harmless but misguided 40-year old runner and hawk-watcher who has
> diligently kept detailed notes on daily observations of accipiters
> over 15 years without interacting with any birding community only to
> emerge now as a highly public figure hurling invective at and
> ridiculing other birders' observations as his basic MO while blithely
> making a fool of himself by publicizing patently false information?
> What a weird choice of species, style and target! What a huge risk to
> credibility and future career options. Why bother maintaining the
> front so long? Why invest so much time in such species-specific
> blogging and bolstering credentials with anonymous "witnesses" and
> false transparency? It makes so little sense...
>
> A deluded kook whose grasp on reality is sadly slipping into oblivion
> and has devised this project as his only lasting message to the world?
> My sympathies are fully extended in this case and I would volunteer
> my services to ease his project into a venue that doesn't risk
> compromising the important work conservationists do to maintain the
> quality of life mandated under the laws of our democracy.
>
> An ideologue with a chip on his shoulder about the Endangered Species
> Act who, on his own, came up with a preemptive scheme by registering a
> not-for-profit corporation and writing blogs about fake observations
> of Northern Goshawks to prevent its future listing? What's weird
> about this is that individuals are rarely motivated on their own to
> develop such an elaborate program (involving a $50 filing fee and ugly
> state paperwork; developing and maintaining active blogs for three
> disparate locations; creating a temporal record of one's own location
> and activity) just to avert the future listing and associated future
> costs of a species that at the current moment has little impact on any
> industry. Most such ideologues on either side of the political
> spectrum are reacting to trenchant life experiences. You have to be
> oddly motivated, very bored, and independently wealthy to act so
> diligently entirely on your own for a future threat.
>
> Or is this the latest nefarious personification of the evil corporate
> empire, the chimeral bogeyman invoked by liberals to the amusement of
> Limbaugh and O'Reilly die-hards, that in anticipating future threats
> imposed by lawfully enacted restrictions on its economic activity is
> capable of strategizing how best to render impotent through fraudulent
> means the democratic activity of an alert citizenry? In other words,
> is this guy a plant paid for by some forest industry trade group like
> the WFPA (Washington Forest Protection Association)? Wouldn't that be
> something? Check out a previous incarnation at
> http://www.seattleweekly.com/2000-10-11/news/rotten-to-the-gills.php.
> Has he been mobilized by financial interests to strategically create a
> public record of Goshawk abundance in multiple states across the range
> of the populations under consideration for listing that would
> contradict data collected by other public interest groups, ultimately
> serving to reduce to the level of hearsay evidence generated by
> citizen observers--rather than professionals--for public interest
> groups representing conservation interests? Could it be that such a
> strategy is paired with concerted efforts to impugn the credibility of
> data collected by citizen scientists to render it useless in court
> proceedings, or worse, to prefabricate a media story-line that has
> worked so well to shape policy on other national issues by creating
> artificial controversies between manufactured experts to mask the
> substantive concerns? Think about it: you're a reporter with a 7pm
> deadline and you have to write about global climate disruption or how
> to teach evolution. Imagine how much easier it is to report a
> catfight between experts--get a couple of good quotes from them
> accusing each other of manipulating the data--rather than reading
> through the entire IPCC report to identify what line of evidence of
> anthropogenic climate change is the most compelling to figure out who
> to interview, etc. You'll never get that before the deadline; besides
> the final episode of reality TV goes on air at 8, and anyway, your
> editor doesn't want to risk being called biased if his stable doesn't
> focus on the controversy rather than the substance. Everyone wins,
> right? It's not the reporters' fault that it works this way, but it
> does compromise the relevance of the information the public gets to
> hear about. As for teaching evolution, the cynical thing is that
> these strategic corporate forces that are so adept at adapting their
> strategies to the evolving environment--just like allele frequencies
> in populations of disease organisms that change in order to adapt to
> and overcome the evolution of its hosts' defense mechanisms--make
> common cause with those social forces that insist on denying the very
> existence of the adaptive process by natural selection in Nature.
> It's a modern-day narrative that packs more punch than Peter denying
> that he knew Christ three times in the Garden of Gethsemane the night
> before the crucifixion!
>
> Come on! I would be proud if I wrote fiction and had come up with
> this story line. Thinking about it this way offers a whole new
> approach to appreciating the remarkable attention to details in all
> this work: the wallpaper on Nelson's blog; the "daily field work
> (weather permitting)"; the quirky closing "The Best, Nelson"; the
> self-conscious shuttling between Goshawk, NG and Gos in the blog
> entries; "Common Northern Goshawk" as an incorporation, an embodiment
> of the message. Do you remember when a spokesperson for this federal
> administration said, "...we create our own reality... . . . and you,
> all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' But you know,
> these tactics aren't new; the bullying, the public posturing combined
> with anonymity and lack of history, the perception of transparency,
> the crude use of the community's vernacular and the simultaneous
> inability to fit in: these are all just like the tactics honed by our
> government during Cointelpro from 1956 into the 1970s and used
> effectively against the AIM and other citizen movements.
>
> Still, to be fair, we still don't know which Nelson Briefer we're
> dealing with. But I tell you what: Depending on which one he is, I
> think we can predict some pretty different responses to an alert,
> suspicious and well-informed community of citizen scientists not
> willing to just settle for a difference of opinion and intent on
> protecting its reputation:
>
> If he is a man honestly convinced he is correct with suitably rigorous
> evidence that Goshawks really are common, and that this fact has been
> missed by generations of ornithologists, throwing down the gauntlet
> will motivate him to step forward and subject his evidence for
> scrutiny. Like most graduate students, I am a sucker for suitably
> rigorous evidence that overthrows decades, nay centuries, of
> conventional wisdom peddled by our ornithological forbears. We may
> yet come to know Briefer well as a birder and a person-in-the-flesh
> and celebrate his bravery in the face of our ridicule and
> marginalization.
>
> If he is a harmless but misguided 40-year old runner and hawk-watcher,
> he may still be honestly convinced he is correct with suitably
> rigorous evidence that Goshawks really are common, and that this fact
> has been missed by generations of ornithologists. In this case, if he
> cares as much as his blogs suggest about whether or not he is
> right--at least enough to publish the names of "witnesses"--we would
> also expect him to step forward and subject his suitably rigorous
> evidence to the community's scrutiny. In this case, the evidence
> would be found wanting and everything would go back to as it was,
> except we would know Briefer as a person-in-the-flesh, forgive him his
> hubris, and he might feel a little sheepish about his 15-year career
> in a birding bubble. But we'd recognize him when we next saw him at
> Deception Pass, on the Guemes Island ferry, and the other favorite
> haunts he mentions on his blog and rib him good-naturedly about his
> Goshawks.
>
> If he is a deluded kook whose grasp on reality is sadly slipping into
> oblivion and has selected this project as his message to the world, I
> would bet nothing will change on his blog. He will continue to post
> kooky observations to his own blog while surprising unsuspecting
> bloggers with non-sequitur comments. Community efforts to reach an
> honest kook are equally likely to succeed or fail and if reached he
> may very well be willing to adjust his format to preclude the
> possibility of being taken too seriously or hauled into court for a
> subpoena. He could also remain a virtual person, despite the best
> efforts to reach him. But this would also be the only possible choice
> for a fraud posing as a kook.
>
> A real ideologue acting alone in bad faith would probably find these
> activities less than satisfying once his cover is blown. With little
> tangible harm done, he would probably not bother covering his tracks
> particularly well. Without much risk of personal repercussions in a
> free country, an ideologue relishes being recognized for his ideology,
> so he might even voluntarily step forward to take credit for an almost
> successful, albeit failed charade. Heck, he might get interviewed by
> Bill O'Reilly or get an audience with Ann Coulter, a motivating
> prospect for such an idealogue, I'm sure. Conceivably, an ideologue
> who believes he could withstand the scrutiny may well opt to adopt one
> of the other personae, particularly that of the deluded kook, since he
> might believe that just having active blogs out there contradicting
> legitimate data could still confuse gullible reporters or others in
> the decision-making chain and perhaps help to undermine other citizen
> science projects.
>
> But a cog in the PR machine of serious financial players has an awful
> lot at stake. Note how up until this point, everything produced by
> Nelson aka Anton Briefer could have been produced by a non-union
> worker in Bangalore, India, fabricating web-based posts, using stock
> photos or trolling the web for images. Everything tangible is
> actually virtual: the witnesses, the 15 years of experience, the NGO,
> the blogs, not to mention the reported birds. Which is not to say
> there isn't a traceable trail: Anton is listed in the public record
> as the registering agent for Common Northern Goshawk as a corporation
> in WA state, complete with an extant Anacortes address (you can
> google-earth the house; I thought I could detect a goshawk perched on
> the tree in the backyard on the satellite image--see what you think).
> The blog itself lists a different Anacortes address along with the
> cell phone number. If large financial interests are pulling the
> strings, the risk of blemishing their reputation as a legitimate
> company is enormous: the public is not very tolerant of front page
> scandals and Wall Street pays attention to front page news. The risks
> are so enormous, that the possibility of exposure through
> identification of the PR cog, Anton himself and his funders as well as
> their connections to the industry would be extremely worrisome. Under
> this scenario, we would expect Anton and Common Northern Goshawk,
> Nelson Briefer and his blogs to disappear without a trace.
> Alternatively, they could calculate that they are safe from exposure
> and might risk mimicking the actions of the Anton alteregos I've just
> identified. Still, the first two alteregos are unlikely since in
> either case, evidence would have to be forthcoming soon. The kook is
> the best option, esp the one who remains entirely anonymous. Still,
> an authentic kook wouldn't be nearly as likely to work hard to
> undermine both the conventional wisdom on Goshawk numbers nor to
> discredit the citizen science community. Thus, the anonymous kook who
> is virulently anti citizen science and continuing his obsession with
> common Goshawks remains extremely suspicious: it could be the cover
> for an agent. To be recognized as harmless he would have to be a
> public figure, available to the press and to the courts. Thus an
> anonymous kook's credibility will continue to erode rapidly.
> Impersonating an idealogue acting alone is another possibility but
> seems much riskier, especially with an attorney general who can't
> figure out his position on water-boarding.
>
> Let this email be the gauntlet: a Nelson Briefer with legitimate data
> will have to reveal himself soon. We can all call his cell number,
> leave a message, demand to join him for his invited goshawking events.
> Besides, we know he reads tweeters; he won't miss this message. It's
> actually fun to leave him messages; be nice. Visit his addresses if
> he doesn't show up. Ask his neighbors about him. There is nothing
> illegal about this. FRAUD is illegal. Ask him to provide his
> evidence publicly; remember blog entries don't count, real documented
> birds do. We have nothing to fear--except a virtual nelson who hides
> behind evasions and disembodied blog entries and seeks to circumvent
> the playing field altogether rather than level it.
>
> You may ask, WHY would I spend this amount of time indulging such
> paranoia. Well, I sing with the Seattle Peace Chorus. Our mission is
> person-to-person diplomacy through music. We travel to enemy
> countries and sing with the people. We went to Venezuela in June and
> had a wonderful time. This is the most harmless group of people you
> could imagine. A FOIA request revealed that the SPC had in fact been
> infiltrated in the early 90s. The FBI informant employed through the
> secret $40 billion budget of our national security system reported
> that the group posed no foreseeable security threat. Imagine, they
> used to get the intelligence right on occasion for that price. OK,
> but that's a peace group--groups with the word peace in them warrant
> the high-risk security profile. But Tweeters? It's the
> ridiculousness of the juxtaposition of the words "tweeters" and
> "industry conspiracy" that makes it an appealing leader. What editor
> doesn't want the appeal of the Onion's front-page headlines when
> reporting real news? Speaking of newspapers, where's my rolodex--and
> the emails for the environment reporters for the PI and the Times?
> You know, they might get a kick out of following up on this lead and
> actually feel like they made a difference if they turn up a story....
>
> Finally, remember that what we need to protect here is not just the
> reality of the Goshawk's plight. In a hearing, a blog about sightings
> without a witness whose tax, phone, bank and background records can be
> subpoenaed and subjected to cross-examination would be pretty meager
> evidence. However, to be effective the strategy only has to make it
> plausible that the variance in the results of bird counters over
> numerous blogs reflects reasonable doubt about what the truth is among
> those claiming to be knowledgeable citizen scientists. If the
> financial interests can protect their investments by hiring a birding
> tyro to fabricate a public record and get away with it, then just
> paying his consultant fees would provide an awesome return. The
> standard of proof for presence vs absence data is by its nature very
> lopsided, favoring presence data. The possibility that Nelson
> Briefer's blogs could be used in a comparative study about the
> agreement among different bird counters, say by the media or an
> independent evaluator, must be nipped in the bud--should compelling
> evidence about his claims fail to materialize.
>
> I am a proud member of the birding community, proud of its
> observational skills and of its vigilance; let's run any charlatans
> out of town! What would make me mad is an industry's public face that
> appears to play by the rules set out in the law of the land in court
> hearings stacked with their banks of lawyers, whose retention costs
> are passed along to the public in the hawking of their products while
> they defraud us by underhandedly undermining fair play with underworld
> tactics. In sports, practitioners of such tactics are suspended. The
> public has the same prerogative: let's ask our representatives and
> our government to revoke the operating licenses for companies that
> think it's ok to do an end run around the law. Companies serve the
> public at its pleasure; we license these companies to operate for a
> reason. If they are not trustworthy actors in negotiations about when
> and where to limit activities that compromise the values we all hold
> in common, they should not be operating at all! Fines and bribes can
> be budgeted as a cost of doing business; real leverage is only secured
> by the possibility of revoking operating licenses. Start a movement
> to review the operating licenses of all corporations--are they
> fulfilling the duty embodied in the licensing contract?
>
> But I'll tell you the one thing that would really piss me off: that
> the idea would even be hatched that a one-man hatchet job would stand
> a chance with us birdwatchers is seriously insulting. If this really
> is what's going on, then I pity them for the atrophy of their
> imagination and their stupid, empty lives. You know what we do when
> the yawning abyss gapes like that? We go birdwatching. Go find
> yourself a goshawk and watch its quirky flight, stuck between an
> accipiter and a buteo. Like us, you will live to tell about it.
>
> Respectfully,
> Dan Froehlich
>
> This text is NOT copyrighted and should be used by as many people as
> possible, esp as an amicus brief in any hearing on the listing status
> of the Northern Goshawk.
>
>
>
> --------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> From: Ebriefer at aol.com
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:22:05 EST
> Subject: [Tweeters] Null Goshawk data
> Dear Tweeters; In 2-3 days I will post my Accipiter Alert.
> I have been a firm believer, for many years, that Christmas Bird
> Counts, spring migration counts, and typical birding trips, are
> gathering unscientific and inaccurate data- relating to Goshawks. In
> other words, NO data! When birders learn the art- science of
> hawk-watching; then you will see a marked increase in the number of
> sightings of Goshawks, and a decrease in the number of unidentified
> accipiters. In other words, as it stands now, some Goshawks are
> treated as Cooper's or S.s. Hawks. Also, some unidentified accipiters
> are Northern Goshawks. Yet, once a birder considers my Accipiter
> Alert; then the number of unidentified accipiters will increase
> (possibly dramatically). And this depends on the experience of the
> birder relating to accipiters. Once the birder (not the hawk-watcher)
> take into consideration " Goshawks with expressed recessive genes",
> and when these types of Goshawks become more numerous, then there
> certainly will be a lack of confidence and confusion when observing
> accipiters. And this leads directly into the difference of a
> hawk-watcher compared to a birder. In other words, any birder who uses
> field marks to identify raptors is working under a handicap. The Best
> - Nelson Briefer Ebriefer at aol.com - Tucson and Anacortes
>
>
>
> See AOL's top rated recipes and easy ways to stay in shape for winter.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: merlinmania at comcast.net (Jim Flynn)
> To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:38:47 +0000
> Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Null Goshawk data
> Hi Tweets,
>
> Although I'm one who normally detests "cease and desist" type messages
> on Tweeters I intend to be a hypocrite in this case. I'm hoping we can
> put this whole Goshawk thread to rest - although I know I am in large
> part resposible for starting it.
>
> I don't think a difference of opinion on Goshawk occurences needs to
> get personal and hope others won't make it so. Its simply a difference
> of opinion - not an uncommon occurence in accipiter ID!
>
> Good birding,
>
> --
> Jim Flynn
> merlinmania at comcast.net
> Seattle, WA
>
>
> --
> *******************
> Daniel Froehlich
> danielfroehlich at gmail.com
> Seattle, WA, 98105
> *******************
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>