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Un-doing a bird
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Un-doing a bird
- From: phukan@email.unc.edu (shantanu phukan)
- Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 11:38:39 -0500
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Dear Listers:
Here is a knotty (and I admit, nutty) ethical question for us birders
to ponder. How does one annul a life-bird once one has seen it?
Why would one want to? Well, a birder-friend and I were sitting down
to breakfast and planning out the rest of our lives bird-wise when we
both realized that I have never gone to Texas and thus have no life
birds in that state. The challenge my friend posed for me was to amass
a North Amercian life list of 500 (I am upto about 420 now) without
ever seeing a life-bird in Texas.
We both realized that it would be a lot more fun to embark on this
project together. The only hitch is that although she has never
deliberately birded Texas she did see a life bird INADVERTENTLY while
driving through the state (a Boat-Tailed Grackle that unfortunately
flew by in front of the car). Now we are wondering how to annul this
sighting so we can both take up the challenge of amassing a long life
list without ever counting Texas. Should accidental life birds 'count'
as much as 'deliberate' ones? Would the ABA masters take a grim view
of 'un-doing' a bird?
O.K. so, I am shirking work by spinning off these silly
thoughts....But doesn't some of the fun of birding lie in setting up
strange counting goals and strategies?
Shantanu Phukan