Regulations Governing the Operation of Bird Records Committees

PREAMBLE: There shall be Bird Records Committees for both North Carolina and South Carolina that operate as committees of the Carolina Bird Club (hereafter CBC). These committees are separate entities that shall operate according to the following set of guidelines.

COMMITTEE COMPOSITION AND QUALIFICATIONS:
Each Records Committee shall include a voting Chair and either six or eight voting members for a total of either seven or nine members. All members must be members of the CBC, may not simultaneously serve on any other Records Committee or similar group which might constitute a conflict of interest and must meet the following four qualifications (A–D):
1. active birder competent in field identification.
2. interest and knowledge in the Committee's State bird list.
3. field experience outside Southeast United States.
4. meet at least two of the following:
  1. expertise in bird distribution from a geographic region of the State on which committee the member will serve.
  2. identification expertise in two or more taxonomic orders of birds that occur in the southeastern United States.
  3. made recent contributions to literature about ornithology from the Carolinas.
  4. more than casual field experience with at least 90% of species recorded from the State on which committee the member will serve (experience may come from outside that State).
TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF OFFICE:
1. The term of office for all Records Committee members shall be two years with no limit, consecutive or otherwise, on the number of terms that may be served. These terms shall run concurrent with the term of the CBC President but shall begin with confirmation of the Committee members at the first Executive Committee meeting following election of the CBC President under whose term the Committees will serve.
2. The Chair of each Records Committee shall be selected from the existing Committee members unless no such persons are nominated or are eligible. In such cases, a new nominee for Chair shall be recommended by the CBC President.
3. Each nominee for Records Committee Chair shall present his or her name along with a slate of nominees for committee members to the CBC President, who in turn shall present the slate to the CBC Executive Committee for consideration as a whole. In the event that more than one slate of nominees for a particular committee is received, the Executive Committee shall select the slate it feels is best qualified.
COMMITTEE FUNCTION:
The role of each Records Committee is to judge the validity of reports of rare and/or unusual birds from that State (Reports of Significance) and to maintain respective State bird lists.
REPORTS OF SIGNIFICANCE:
1. A Report of Significance is defined as:
  1. A report of any previously unrecorded species of bird from the State in which it occurred.
  2. Any report which would elevate a species from a lower category of acceptance to a higher one on the list acceptance hierarchy (Section V).
  3. A report of any species for which there are 10 or fewer records for the season or geographic region in which it occurred. The term “geographic region” is not limited in definition but implies a continuous distinctive tract of land or habitat that is measured on the order of square miles and has established or definable boundaries such as “Coast”, “Sandhills”, “Piedmont”, “Mountains”, etc.
2. Reports of Significance may be received as:
  1. Unpublished reports that are documented on Records Committee approved Rare Bird Report forms made available by the Chair, or by other Committee-acceptable format.
  2. Unpublished physical evidence (e.g., specimen, photograph) provided that such evidence is made available to all Records Committee members in an appropriate setting.
  3. Published descriptions in a refereed journal provided that a thorough description of the bird's distinguishing field marks are published, regardless of the availability of unpublished evidence such as a photograph, sound recording or specimen.
3. Reports of birds, whether published or not, that lack documentation and/or are where such documentation is not made available to the Records Committee are not Reports of Significance. As such, they cannot be considered records and until such time as the necessary documentation is available, are unaccepted sightings (US; see Section V,D).
LIST CATEGORIES:
Reported species may be placed on one of four lists:
1. Official State List:
  1. includes all species documented by an appropriately archived voucher specimen.
  2. includes all species documented by an unambiguous photograph, voice recording, video tape or other physical evidence that is published in a refereed journal and/or similarly archived as is a voucher specimen, or both.
  3. includes special cases in which species are documented (and archived as above) at the genus level but are indistinguishable at the species level on the physical evidence available, provided that none of the contenders is already on the Official State List. The genus with the possible contenders is then listed as “Genus name (sp?), contender1/contender2/ ... ” in alphabetical order, followed by “probably contender x” where appropriate.
  4. all species (including “special cases” as above) documented by at least three accepted, separate sight records, of which at least one is published with details in a refereed journal. “Documented” implies a written description of the bird including pertinent identification marks. The term “separate sight record” indicates separate occurrences of one or more different individuals (but not a single flock regardless of the number involved) or repeated occurrence of a single individual in which occurrences are separated by one or more seasons of non-occurrence. The Records Committee may elect to withhold Official State List status in the event that all three records are by the same single observer and unverified by other evidence or corroboration.
2. Provisional List:
  1. All species documented and accepted by the Records Committee as valid which have not met the criteria for acceptance to the Official State List.
  2. Any report of a bird but for which the identification at the species level is uncertain but suspected AND identification at a higher taxonomic level (e.g., genus) is known (see Section V,A,3), provided that:
    1. no other members of that known taxonomic level are on the Official State List
    2. all other members at that known taxonomic level have been eliminated as possible contenders
3. Unaccepted Origin List:
  1. Any report of a bird judged by the Records Committee to be correctly identified but also judged to be:
    1. escaped from captivity.
    2. imported into the State and released or reaching the State of its own accord after having been transported into the region or the country.
    3. a member of a feral, non-established exotic population.
    4. a captive-reared member of a native species.
    5. the wild offspring of any of the above.
      NOTE: Although certain groups (e.g., waterfowl and parrots) are notorious for being introduced, each report shall be judged independently on its own merits. The guidelines of acceptance will, follow the most current opinions of the American Ornithologists Union and/or American Birding Association for each species unless compelling evidence to the contrary is presented.
  2. Any report of a bird from a State where the reported bird is judged to have occurred outside the geographic boundaries of that State.
4. Unaccepted Sighting List:
  1. Any report of a bird that is considered a likely misidentification by vote of the Records Committee.
  2. Any bird reported in the literature wherein that report would otherwise elevate the species to a higher level on the Official State List, for which published details of that report are inadequate for acceptance, in spite of possible authenticity of identification.
VOTING PROCEDURE:
1. The Chair shall solicit and/or receive all reports on Sightings of Significance. Once a report is submitted, it must be processed to completion. The submitted report shall be the only evidence on which a decision may be made unless substantiating physical evidence such as a photograph or specimen is known and made available to all Records Committee members.
2. The Chair will mail or otherwise deliver to each member, copies of reports submitted for consideration and request a response in the form of a vote for one of five categories belonging to two groups on a voting hierarchy.
  1. Acceptance group:
    1. “AV”: Accepted as Valid; the reported identification is judged to be accurate and the bird of wild origin.
    2. “QO”: The identification is accepted as valid but the bird is judged to be of Questionable Origin (see Section V,C)
  2. Non-acceptance group
    1. “US”: Rejected as an Unaccepted Sighting.
      1. the bird is judged to be a species other than that reported.
      2. the bird cannot be reasonably demonstrated to be the species reported.
    2. “ID”: Rejected as Inadequately Documented to be considered as a valid record.
    3. “AB”: Abstained on the basis of insufficient experience and/or knowledge to judge the report. An vote of “AB” has no specific status other than a generalized non-acceptance vote.
RESOURCE LIMITATIONS:
Records Committee members may use any resource at their disposal in reaching a decision but should not confer with each other prior to a decision. The only exception is that the reporting individual(s) may not be contacted for additional information unless said contact is initiated by the Chair and the resulting written response is made available to all committee members.
DEADLINES:
For each report submitted to members for vote, a time deadline shall be established by the Chair not to exceed 6 weeks for return of the decision by each member. Failure to vote by the deadline shall constitute a non-vote and is counted neither for nor against the report. Committee members who refrain from voting on a given report forfeit their right to participate in future discussion of the report unless it is resubmitted for a vote in which they participate. Any member who fails to vote on two consecutive occasions or more than three of ten occasions shall be removed from the committee.
CLASSES OF REPORTS:
1. A Class A Report is defined an original rare bird report received for the first time with all supporting evidence provided by the reporting observer(s).
2. A Class B Report is defined as a report that is published prior to the Committee's evaluation.
3. A Class C Report is defined as a report which is either:
  1. resubmitted to the Committee by the reporting observer(s) following a vote in which the report was not accepted.
  2. resubmitted following outside review by vote of the Committee, provided that the reviewers' comments are informative and made available to Committee members at the time of resubmission.
  3. sent to outside reviewers by the Chair, prior to consideration by the Committee. The reviewer's comments and the original report shall then be submitted together to Committee members for their evaluation.
BALLOTING:
Unless specifically requested by a Committee member and agreed upon by a majority of the Committee, no report shall be voted on more than twice.
1. For Class A Reports, all categories on the voting hierarchy (see VII, B) are operative.
2. For Class B Reports, AB votes are automatically scored as ID.
3. For Class C Reports, AB and ID votes are automatically scored as US.
TABULATION OF VOTES:
It shall be the responsibility of the Chair of each Records Committee to tally the votes for each report and report notify the Committee members of the outcome within six weeks of the voting deadline.
1. Any report (Class A, B or C) which receives a majority (more than 50%) of acceptance votes (AV and/or QO) in any combination AND fewer than 25% non-acceptance votes (US, ID and/or AB) in any combination is accepted at the voting category (AV and QO) that receives the greater number. Should both receive equal votes, the report is accepted at the lower level on the voting hierarchy (QO).
2. A report which receives a majority of acceptance votes (AV and/or QO) but also receives 25% or more non-acceptance votes (US, ID and/or AB) in any combination shall:
  1. if either a Class A or a Class B Report, be sent for outside review to not fewer than two independent reviewers not directly involved with the sighting.
  2. if a Class C Report, be accepted at the voting hierarchy (AV or QO) which receives the greater number. Should both receive equal votes, the report is accepted at the lower level on the voting hierarchy (QO).
3. A report which receives a majority of non-acceptance votes (US, ID, and/or AB) in any combination is not accepted.
  1. Any Class A, Class B or Class C Report for which US receives the greatest number of non-acceptance votes is rejected and requires no further action.
  2. Any Class A or Class B Report for which ID receives the greatest number of non-acceptance votes may, at the option of the Records Committee, be returned to the reporting observer(s) for additional information. The reporting observer(s) shall be given not more than 60 days to provide the requested information. Should the reporting observer(s) fail to provide the requested information, or should the committee decide not to return the report for additional information, the report is automatically listed as US, requiring no further action by the Committee.
  3. Any Class A Report for which AB receives greatest number of non-acceptance must be sent for outside review to not fewer than two independent reviewers not directly involved with the sighting.
  4. Should two or more categories of non-acceptance votes tie for the greatest number, the lowest category on the voting hierarchy involved in the tie is the judgment.
4. Any Class A Report that the Chair feels is insufficiently documented to be judged may be returned to the reporting observer(s) for additional information. Upon its return, regardless of its condition, the report shall be distributed for a vote as a Class A Report.
5. Any report that is submitted and subsequently rejected may be resubmitted as a Class C Report under the following conditions:
  1. If rejected as US, the resubmitted report must include previously unavailable physical evidence (such as a specimen, photograph, etc.) and/or a written description by a corroborating observer not involved in the original report.
  2. If rejected as ID, the resubmitted report may include any previously unavailable physical evidence and/or corroborating details by either the original observer(s) or other observer(s). However, the reporting observer(s) MUST provide any evidence specifically requested by the committee in order for it to be reconsidered.
  3. If a different party INDEPENDENTLY provides documentation of the bird(s) in question, that report shall be treated as a Class A Report and shall be judged independently on its own merits. Unless that party and the original reporting observer(s) were together at the time of the sighting, acceptance of the second report has no effect on acceptance of the first report.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS:
The Records Committee may meet as frequently as deemed necessary by the Chair or by majority request of the members but must meet at least once each year. Meetings of the Records Committee are open to any interested persons. Guests may participate in open discussions as appropriate. Voting at the meetings is limited to Records Committee members and any duly designated proxy of an absent Committee member.
ANNUAL REPORT:
An annual report of the Records Committee shall be published in The Chat. Each Committee Chair must submit an annual report before March 1 of the following year. The precise format is at the discretion of the Chair and The Chat editor but must include the following:
1. A complete listing of reports reviewed and the judgment of the Committee for each.
2. Rationale for the Committee's decision for each report reviewed and/or its assignment to the List Category (Section VI) for that State.
3. For non-accepted report(s), the annual report shall not list the name(s) of the observer(s), nor the precise location and dates of the sighting(s).
LIMITATIONS OF JURISDICTION:
1. Records Committee is free to evaluate any report of a bird from its respective State, including those unpublished, already published or submitted for publication.
2. In the event that a report is simultaneously submitted to the Records Committee for evaluation and for publication in the The Chat, the Records Committee Chair must notify the Editor:
  1. that the Records Committee has received the same report for review.
  2. of the final decision of the Records Committee.
  3. that the description(s) in a version of the report seen by the Records Committee is discrepant with the version of submitted for publication, particularly where such differences might significantly affect the appropriateness of the article for publication.