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~ The CBRC's McKay's Unicorn ~ CBRC#2000-042, Snow Bunting at Half Moon Bay, San Mateo Co., California. Western Birds 33:27, 2002 (Vol. 33, pg. 27, No. 1) CBRC reports is the link for the Western Birds index at SORA where the CBRC annual reports are, so you can read 'em and weep. :) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ CBRC Rejection Unicorns The California Bird Records Committee or CBRC asserts they are assurring the accuracy of the avian historical record. They do this with a group of 10 people passing judgement on bird reports. Somehow it is considered official, though I never got to vote for them. What sounds like it might not be a bad idea at first glance, upon scrutiny of the reasons used to reject reports reveals that perhaps the human error factor is too great for such a system to work. Egos, philosophies, and even grudges and bias all affect voting tremendously. It is a psuedo-scientific endeavor, and more of a boys club opinion, yet sold as being officially scientifically binding. It only takes 3 morons, er, members, to reject a good record. If they get it wrong there are no ramifications. They just keep going and get more wrong, because it is not about making sure the results are correct. No one checks to see if the reasons are honest or truthful as in 1991-035, and when shown as not being so, they don't care. Some CBRC members in particular are well-known for creating mind-boggling reasons for rejection. Things that one can not even imagine could be real, are used as reasons to reject obviously perfectly good bird reports. These are rejection unicorns. Made up figments of the imagination a CBRC member creates because some are hooked on just saying no. Making up a fantasmical reason to reject a bird report is in my view a zillion times worse than a birder making up identifications. To make up phony BS reasons to reject is lying. It is cheating the record. It is stealing from the accuracy they say they are there to ensure. It is not different than making up ID's. Only the psuedo-intelluctual would think so and find it acceptable, as the CBRC does. Hell hath no fury like the CBRC if they think you made something up. Yet, they make things up to reject good records, even to and including that the observer made something up, such as we see on 1991-035. But there are no consequences for them lying and cheating, proving it is a boy's club, and only psuedo-science. What happens to the child that is not diciplined? About their Unicorns Unicorns as most of you know, don't exist. Some of the reasons for CBRC rejection are just as ficticous. Unicorns are alive and well at the CBRC, and in fact common. They have invented several different kinds (subspecies) of them, as they have honed to an art, making up BS reasons to reject valid bird reports. This is born of a philosophy that if you use any reason conceiveable or imaginable, including those based in fantasy, to vote no on a bird report, only the very best (irrefutable) reports will contstitute the official record. That's fine, if you like throwing the baby out with the bath water It results in a record just as biased as allowing any report to become part of it would. Just biased another way. I have heard CBRC members say they would rather throw out 99 good records than let one bad one in. Doesn't that create just as skewed results? This is what that becomes. A Snow Bunting seen flying over and heard calling in northern California on the coast by an "experienced" birder. It was a bare-eyed observation. And the report was from the kind of observer any record committe should love to receive reports from, one who knew the species. This Snow Bunting was rejected because according to some members of the CBRC (just a guess, the socal gang?) a McKay's Bunting could not be eliminated in a flyover, and the observation did not meet the "CBRC's standards of acceptance." They have never published what these standards are, but clearly an experienced expert seeing and identifying a bird they know well, without binoculars, including hearing it call, is not an acceptable acceptable bird record in California. I guess they can not ID anything without binoculars, bare-eyed, correctly. How Unicorns work It takes one moronic idiot to come up with the unicorn, whom then proceeds to lobby a buddy or two and get a couple sycophant no votes and voila! REJECTED! This Snow Bunting was rejected because it might have been something that doesn't exist in California, a McKay's Bunting. CBRC psuedo-scientists rejected it because it might have been something that never happened. It could have been yeti too. All anybody wants is for rejections to be for real reasons. It is well known that Snow Buntings fly down the coast of California occasionaly, but regularly. They've been seen all the way to San Diego. I saw one fly by the Palos Verdes Peninsula once. I was smart enough not to let the CBRC have its way with it in though. McKay's Bunting lives in the Bering Sea, nesting on a few islands and wintering mostly on the adjacent mainland coast of the Bering Sea. It is very rare to accidental even nearby in southern Alaska. There are single vagrant records in British Columbia, Washington, and I think one in northern Oregon. McKay's does not regularly wander widely like Snow Buntings do all the time. Snow Bunting is known south to San Diego, CA, to Big Bend and South Padre Island in Texas and in Florida. There are many records of Snow Buntings in California, mostly along the coast, northward, where the experienced birder was. They may not occur annually but they are regular. Some years multiple records occur. McKay's Bunting is a Unicorn in California. They don't exist here. There ain't no such animal. They are the stuff of fantasy. We have proven 200 years of non-existence here. Something that does not exist is a REASON to vote no? It is at the CBRC, where any reason is acceptable. There have been many Snows Buntings in CA, not one McKay's ever, yet they reject Snow because it could have been McKays? Is that logical? Is it reasonable? Is it scientific? So the type of "science" being practiced at the CBRC is one in which they reject that which we know to occur, for that which we know not to occur. Something that never happened, that is the stuff of fantasy, is a valid reason for rejection in the CBRC. This is what countless CBRC rejections are often made of. Unicorns. Things that don't exist. If we extend this logic we should not accept Least Tern sightings as they could be Little Terns. We should not accept fly-by Semipalmated Plovers that don't call as they could be Little Ringed Plovers. No way can we accept migrant altitude Northern Harriers as they might be Hen Harriers, and any Snowy Plover could be a Kentish Plover. Some might say those examples are ridiculous, but they are not any more so than rejecting a Snow Bunting because it might have been a McKay's. It is rejecting that which we know for that we don't. If the "reasoning" can not withstand a simple extension of the logic, it is not good reasoning. They assert this is assuring the accuracy of the scientific record Unfortunately these rejection Unicorns are often used, mostly by the same gang within the CBRC, the socal record wreckers. I fail to see the logic in rejecting an experts report of something we know to occur, for the whimsical fantasy that something that never happened, might. It is simply making up any reason to just say no. It is not a scientific conclusion but a wild crazy hypothesis. Everything we know in CA says it could not have been and was not a McKay's Bunting. Which idiots think it could have been? There are more reasonable UFO reports. What would have happened if the observer submitted a McKay's Bunting? It would have been rejected for not being able to eliminate Snow. This is how the CBRC works. This is science to them, but this is not scientific. They have a rejection reason for every season, or circumstance, often different when it is their observation. I don't believe this benefits science or the record. They clearly are not really interested in the accuracy of the record or they would see to it good reports like this become part of it. It has become a game to some, thereby ruining it. If the CBRC answered to anybody but themselves, I can't imagine how this would stand. The people that make up stupid crazy reasons just to say no, lack purity of intent, and should not be allowed to review bird records. There should be a review of the review, done by none of them, and one instance of making up BS to reject (like 1991-035), and you are out, for lack of the objectivity required to do the job properly. Countless records have been rejected due to these rejection Unicorns. The CBRC has shown a rejected record means nothing, by making folly of it. They mock themselves when accepting this type of result as forward thinking, or intelligence. The "any reason to say no" philosophy has been proven an ignorant one due to the execution by those promoting it. This is why many good birders only submit photo records. Many good birders don't submit to this lunacy at all. Shame on the CBRC for calling their results scientific, binding, and those that refuse to accept their unicorns, unsubstantiated. Does rejecting records for Unicorns, occur where it is not whatsoever tolerated, or where it is the culture? Mitch Heindel Boycott the CBRC ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ McKay's Unicorn McKay's Unicorn (This page) Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel 1997 Desert rats decide seabirds Zone-tailed Hawk 1994 the CBRC tongue-twist Scissor-tailgate review discussion Discussion 4 1991-035 review overview The CBRC has standards? CBRC standards is an oxymoron CBRC Review Comments on the 6/7/89 Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Scissor-tailgate Timeline My Story The CBRC & Me Why is my brother my keeper? CBRC scientific methodology is an oxymoron too HOME |
