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Posted by John Boyd on 08:11:19 01/27/10
In Reply to: Re: La Sagra's Flycatcher posted by Bill Pranty
Your wording suggests you think the bird should not be considered wild. However, the interpretations we have from the ABA Recording Standards & Ethics Committee make clear that being unwild is not only a permanent condition (section B.iv under rule 3), but is inherited by its descendants. That makes clear that it's not meant to apply to native birds in their native range (e.g., the RF Booby in question). Otherwise, such a bird would cast a cloud lasting many years over all sightings of such birds in the area. I think its unfortunate that the RS&E committee has so skewed the meaning of "wild", but they have, and we have to live with it.
That means that the only way for it to not be countable is to claim it is restrained, which is rather obviously false.
It's hard to see how this bird could be ruled out under the current rules and interpretations. It would be a bad move if the RS&E Committee did so. It would be an arbitrary action that leaves the current rules and interpretations without reasonable meaning. E.g., claiming the bird is not unrestrained even when its been flying around freely for a month or two would be a bizarre use of "unrestrained".
I do think that it would make perfect sense to temporarily remove a bird's wild status in such cases, but to do that, the ABA Recording Standards & Ethics Committee has to revise the rules and interpretations. They would also have to give us a standard for when such a bird returns to wild status.
Someone at the Wild Bird Center in the keys once told me of Brown Booby they had rescued that periodically returned over the next couple of years. Would such a bird be wild or unwild? The standard would have to cover such cases.
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